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!

黑人牙膏

So first, I wanted to say how honored I am that Jen Chiu reads my blog. So very honored.

Anyway, it's been eleven days since I've updated my blog, but I had several things I wanted to mention. First, church here is so interesting! Without being particularly negative, I was very astonished at something I saw on Palm Sunday here. I was sitting with a couple friends maybe in the fifth or so pew. Two pews ahead, and almost directly in front of me, there was what seemed to be an Asian married couple who were seriously just making out during worship. Just like all over each others' faces. Honestly? It's just so weird to see two people straight up mouth on mouth action in a pew at church with a possible 600 people glancing at you. Oh, and the guy had a man-purse. I feel like that makes the scene just that much more ridiculous. I can see holding hands, or even hugging, but making out? Too much. I couldn't stop myself from bursting out into uproarious laughter. I think my friends were more ashamed by my laughing than by the couple. The cherry on top is that right after worship ended, the couple grabbed all their stuff and either left or got seats in the back. I like to pretend the first because it makes the story that much better. As a sidenote, I think it's interesting that the worship director plays the keyboards/drum machine every week. That's right. He plays the drum machine.

Tangentially, I think one of my favorite introduce yourself+random question random questions is what toothpaste you prefer to use. Prefer, because sometimes you just can't get it. For some reason, I've always been a Colgate Total person. The idea of 12 hours of protection, even if it's just a marketing gimmick, is somehow really reassuring for me. Also, I think it tastes pretty good. Anyway, I've been to a couple more people's places around here, and in using their bathrooms, have noticed a semi-disturbing trend. Apparently, Darlie Toothpaste is very popular here. In Chinese, Darlie Toothpaste is called 黑人牙膏, which for my non-Chinese reading audience means Black People Toothpaste. I guess I'm more racially sensitive than the average Chinese guy, but that just seems ridiculous. But also ridiculously amusing. The Wikipedia link above is quite enlightening though. Here is a picture of what it looks like:

I just think that's really funny and also very ridiculous.

Warriors Interlude

Okay, I've been good at not writing about the Warriors, but last night I had a revelation. If we traded Monta (bear with me), Wright, and Bellinelli for Chris Bosh this off-season, think about the possibilities. Assuming Crawford doesn't bail (which surprisingly, if this goes through, I hope he doesn't), imagine your starting line. Some point guard (to be addressed later), Crawford, Stack, Bosh, Beans. I mean, that's pretty beastly considering that Crawford and Stack are legit wings who can semi-play point. Okay, next assume you draft a decent point this summer. And, from what I understand, there are a fair amount of possible NBA rotation quality points in the draft. With those other four in the starting lineup, you wouldn't even need a superstar point, just someone who had decent handles and could pass.

Then consider the bench. With Bellinelli and Monta gone, you lose a lot of congestion at the wings, so you have, on the bench, Morrow (shooting fantastically), Buike at the wings, Randolph being Randolph, Ronny running the frontcourt, and Maggette scoring and jacking up fouls. Oh, and CJ Watson running the backup point. I mean it's not the best depth, but you would definitely say it's deep. Okay, now imagine we trade some combination of draft pick/Ronny (God forbid)/Buike (since no one would take Maggette, or would they?) for a second tier starting pg - Raymond Felton/Ramon Sessions for our starting lineup. Final team is something around the lines of 2nd tier pg, Craw, Stack, Bosh, Biens for starting 5, then cj watson/draft pick, morrow, maggette, randolph, ronny, and some random combo of rob kurz/jermareo davidson. That's a good team. I mean, we could definitely make that work. Seriously!

Okay, and on a non-basketball sidenote, this morning I ate some button mushrooms in an omlette in this western-style cafe/deli. Woo mushrooms!

Elevator Efficiency

So in an attempt to write more interestingly on my blog, I've made a little note on the side of my desktop about things to write about.

So mushrooms. If you guys know me or have eaten with me a couple times, you know I really like eating mushrooms. For some reason, though, the normal mushrooms I eat in the US I've never actually had in China. Apparently they are called button mushrooms Here is a picture:

In China, and I'm definitely not complaining about this, all the mushrooms I eat are 香菇. I wonder what that is in English. According to Google Translator (which is the third result if you google translator, oddly enough), its translated as Dried Mushroom. I'm sure they are fresh sometimes though. Anyway, I eat a lot of them and they look like this:

Also, I eat a ton of eggs. I think the only thing for sure I'm coming back from China with (besides my person and a suitcase or two) is high cholesterol. Honestly I love eggs so much. I eat a Chinese egg crepe (the eggs aren't particularly Chinese, but I think the style of crepe is) like every night. Eggs are (wonderfully) an all day food here. I really like using parentheses.

Okay, the cover/title story: elevator efficiency. My dormitory has five elevators. Two on each side of the main corridor and one in the back which I think technically is a service elevator, but is actually no different than the other four except perhaps in smell. Each of the pairs of elevators is controlled independently from the other, ie. if you push the up button on one side, it doesn't register for the other, or for the service elevator in the back. The back service elevator and one of the pairs shuts down at midnight. Oh, and for some odd reason, sometimes if you press down at any given floor, both of the elevators on that side might open their doors for you, and not simultaneously.

Okay, that is all just to say that the program that these elevators are run on seem totally and unecessarily inefficient, and it drives me nuts. I have a hobby of betting on a side to see which side will come first, but most people in their haste push down or up on both sides, step in the first elevator to arrive, and let the other side stop there unnecessarily. I know it isn't a big deal, but it bugs me. I feel like someone should come here, link all the elevators up to one program, make it effecient, and then...well finish. Ahh! Okay that was it, I just wanted to share that with the world.

Point

I have had very little inspire me to write recently, and I feel bad about it, so I will try to make my life interesting as to write more here. So look forward to more soon!

As a quick aside (so there's at least something interesting), apparently I/something burned a hole in my lamp. Like part of the base melted. The lamp was always crazy and flickery and really hot, and for some reason smelled like seaweed, so I wasn't really surprised it started melting today. As my roommate Greg put it, "20块 Chinese construction". I really hope that's the right word.

Oh that's interesting! I finally, after 20 years of being Chinese, learned how to type Chinese on my computer. How exciting!

Matchmaking

Happy Spring Break for you guys who are lucky enough to have it now. Enjoy it! If you are at home, watch a Warriors game for me. Serious - Anthony Randolph playing time (or is he injured now?)!

Quick aside - I had my first apple-tini (what's the correct way to spell that?) the other night. And, amazingly enough, someone else said, "I have to get one, I just love Scrubs too much" before I had a chance too. Naturally, I responded, "Does that come in hetero?" It was quite a moment.

Anyway, today I went to the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (I think). It was pretty cool! The place was a little small, at least compared to art museums I have previously been to, but it was very interesting. There was a lot of multimedia stuff going on. I think I have that kind of grouped with contemporary dance in my head - I just don't get a lot of it. There was one really cool exhibit that was like a room with white walls, but they had projected like walls of an actual building on to the walls using projectors, so there were like projected windows and doors and stuff, and some guy I guess just filmed a day from those viewpoints so it was like being indoors, but not. Does that make sense? There were also like some exhibits involving lots of newspaper made into mannequins and a crazy post-apocalyptic view of PuDong and some other crazy stuff. Definitely interesting, but it was hard for me to see the artistic value in a lot of the stuff. I guess I'm just not that artsy of a person. While there, though, I decided to rank the most to least confusing forms of artwork in my mind (in general of course, some stuff doesn't make any sense to me at all even in a great meduim):
1. Dance. Hella don't get contemporary dance.
2. Multimedia. An excuse not to work hard enough on any one medium (kind of joking, but I don't see how something gets significantly meaning-ier by adding bland music in the back and using a projector).
3. Theater. A lot of it makes sense, but some new stuff is just over my head.
4. Visual Art. Even if I don't get it, the colors are usually pretty.
5. Literature. It's mostly cool, but some of that stream of consciousness stuff is kind of weird.
6. Music. Sometimes whiny, but there's just so much good music. Like Soul.
I hope I didn't miss any huge artform. While at the museum, though, I was reminded that I really like observing things. While my friends were fairly contented with a cursory glance at most the "pieces" (can you really call a room with curtains and a smoky fountain a piece of art?), I felt rushed even spending ten minutes looking at some splashes of paint. Which I think is nuts. I also like what I call the "looking at art" pose. It might look something like ... Well I just spent twenty minutes Googling/Yahoo Image Searching "looking at art", "appreciating art", and "viewing art" and either no one looks at art like I do, or no one who does takes pictures of themselves doing it, or at least they don't including the words looking, appreciating, viewing, and art in the title. Anyway, I look at art standing up wiht one arm cross and a hand on my chin. I'm pretty sure I only stand like that when looking at art. It's a fun pose. In conclusion, the art museum was pretty cool and kind of weird. Oh, but it was interesting that almost all the artists were Chinese, but most the visual/multimedia stuff that included text only had English, not Chinese.

The real cool part of today, though, was walking through People's Square on the way to the museum. Our teacher had told us about this thing that happens there on Saturday afternoons, but I totally forgot about it. Apparently tons of people go there on the weekends to try to matchmake for their kids. Seroiusly hundreds of older people carrying around hand-written classified ads for their kids, including information on height, age, weight, birthdate, and a ton of other crazy stuff. Some of them were pinned up on clotheslines, some were clipped to little bags, I assume used to get information from interested people, and some were just held up by sitting people. It was fascinating. If I'm unmarried by 28 or so, and my Chinese improves enough, I hope my parents would come to Shanghai to market me in People's Square. I was even thinking about asking my dad to do it when he gets here in May. I figure, 1.72 m, born in 1988, successful parents, good education, I might be a little young but that seems attractive enough on paper right? I should have taken pictures. Yeah...it was nuts.

There was something else interesting on the internet I wanted to share, but I can't remember what it is anymore. I guess it will give me fodder for next time.

Babies

I have been trying really hard to think about things I want to write about on my blog. One idea was toilet paper, since it's come up before. It's a lot cheaper apparently if you get toilet paper without the cardboard tube in the middle, and we don't have like a rack/dispenser for it anyway in our bathroom, so I think I'm going to pick up some sweet tubeless toilet paper soon. Maybe I'll take a picture and put it here. That would be kind of interesting and also desperate.

Aceyalone's Magnificent City CD is really good. I haven't listened to this in hella days. I remember LiveJournal used to have the currently listening to and currently feeling little blurbs for each entry. That was hella days ago.

Anyway, I had a really cute experience today. I got to class a little late, but during my lunch break I was outside laying on a little patch of grass outside the classroom because the weather has just been super gorgeous in the last couple days. After maybe fifteen minutes just lying down enjoying the sun and the light cool breeze, I heard the yells of little kids. There were three of them running toward me with a jumprope. I sat up to observe, and it was just so adorable - they were maybe between 2 and 4 years old, and the older boy and younger girl were taking turns holding and jumping of the rope. It was just so cute! The boy had to go, though, so I helped out the little girl by holding the other end of the rope so she could jump over. After a while of this, she ran around to her grandmother (I think) and gave her the biggest hug over her shoulders. It was seriously a moment where I was convinced of the work of God. The little girl just clearly loved her grandmother (I think) with such an innocent, pure love. And she was really cute. I ended up having a short conversation with the grandmother (I think) about job opportunities in China versus those in America and all that business with the world financial crisis. In Chinese!

The grandmother (I think) told the girl to thank the xiao shushu (sorry I still haven't figured out how to type Chinese) in reference to me. I can't believe I'm a shushu instead of a gege now. Oh, shu shu means younger uncle and gege means older brother. I feel like that's a right of passage into adulthood, and it freaks me out. Weird!

Sorry!

I had so many ideas for things to write about in my blog, but I forgot most of them. Hilariously enough, though, our last reading text/chapter in class was about blogs and the internet. I can now talk about blogging in Chinese (or at least have the vocabulary). Unfortunately, however, when the teacher asked who in our class had a blog, I was the only one stupid/honest/reckless enough to honestly answer yes. So if any of you reading this are my classmates, I think you are awesome. See you in class tomorrow.

I promise when I think of interesting things in China that are worth blogging about I'll write about them sooner so I don't forget.

OH IMPORTANT!

Because of the glory that is daylight savings, I am now 12 hours ahead of the East coast and 15 ahead of the West. That means for those at Middlebury, just flip AM to PM and vice versa, and at home, add 3 hours then do the flip. =D

Basketball

So I've balled three times now since I've been to China. I know, that's pretty bad...but it was raining pretty much straight for the first three weeks, so I don't feel that bad. Anyway, some thoughts: it's true, Chinese kids love playing like guards. Or at least in pickup games. I haven't actually played with anyone tall enough to be naturally suited for playing forward or center. But yeah the stereotypes, for the most part, are true. I played with a couple guys today that seriously every possession, whoever brought the ball down would drive and kick or attempt an ugly finish. Every play. Four of the five people on the team. They seriously all played exactly the same. They knew each other too, so the fifth guy, who was actually pretty decent but doesn't look good, got zero ball time. It was a little depressing. Kids here (or at least the kids from Asia except one kid from Korea I met) don't play defense. It's like watching a Warrior Suns game from way back when, or I guess like any Warriors game now.

I was playing today for a while, but the one game I sat out, on a fast break one of the kids who plays like a guard (who is also Asian, has cornrows, is pretty skinny, and wears all like XXXXL clothes) went up for a dunk. He made the dunk, but came down a little too hard and broke the backboard in half. I don't know where I'm going to play next time.

As a sidenote, while I was sitting I got to do some pull-ups because the hoops have a weird structure that makes for an efficient pull-up bar. The good news is that I can do more than one. The bad news is my arms hurt like crazy and it's now annoying to write.

Not much going on?

I have class at 8 AM three days a week. It's really hard for me to wake up for those classes.

Matt Lowes told me I probably wouldn't use my water bottle (klean kanteen - I'm on the bandwagon) very often, but I'm using it all the time. Unfortunately, however, its mouth is wide, but not as wide as a Nalgene so I'm not careful when I drink from it, and it always gets all over my shirt. That just happened. Not much has been going on here - just class. I have to pick a place to go during our April vacation, and I don't know which place to choose.

Not much is happening over here on my side. My classmates are pretty cool - there's a French girl that sits next to me that like appeared the second week of class. She's kind of interesting. The other kids are Korean, American, Japanese, Italian, and one guy from Kazhkstan. Did I spell that right? We went out for dinner a couple times, eat lunch together almost every day, and went kareoking once. Did I spell that right too? I guess one of them knew this other Chinese guy who, through them, I am now friends with, and he is pretty cool. Since the foreign students all either live off campus or in a foreign student only dorm, and I'm taking just Chinese language classes, I don't get many opportunities to interact with Chinese people, so I'm glad I met him. Apparently he competes in kareoke competitions. Legit. The only other Chinese friend I have is this guy I play ball with - he says playing with other Chinese kids is boring cause most of them aren't good, so he plays with the foreigners. It's fun.

I looked at my guitar case a minute ago and saw my Alpine Shop sticker (for those of you who haven't seen, it says ski today work tomorrow), and was very obviously reminded of my lack of skiing. Depressing. I check tramdock.com (part of the backcountry.com corporation, a monolithic online outdoors gear merchant) like a billion times a day. I also check it's new sister-site, brociety.com which sells snowboard gear. I have a bit of an issue looking at a website titled "Brociety" though. It seriously makes me feel a little dirty inside.

Anyway, seriously there's nothing going on over here. I need to study for my quiz tomorrow, so you guys make the effort - tell me what's up on your end.

Baseball caps?

I can't decide how often I want to write in my blog. Last semester, when trying to put off homework, I would love the anticipation of having friends put up new, interesting blog posts. I have to balance that, however, with the possibility of having the reputation of living on the internet. Anyway, it's been more than four days so I think it's okay.

There are a lot of Koreans here studying Chinese. I guess it's a thing now. Anyway, I noticed a couple trends while observing various Korean girls. The first thing I noticed is that they are all about heels. So are Chinese girls here, but not to the same extent, and definitely not around campus. Korean girls, however, are all about wearing heels everywhere. Usually with skinny jeans. Which brings me to my next point. Most of them are really skinny. Or at least pretty skinny. I don't think I've seen even one on the chubby side. Third, they all seem to wear lots of makeup. Like a lot. But the oddest thing of all is their obsession with baseball caps. This, of course, is a generalization, but I've noticed that a ton of Korean girls here (from Korea) wear baseball caps all the time. Especially many wear Yankee's caps, which makes me think they are from New York. Turns out none of them are (since they are all from Korea). It's a really odd image. Looking from the bottom up, you see heels, skinny jeans or leggings, sometimes a skirt, a nice top/jacket, a made-up face and a lot of the time hoop earrings, and then a baseball cap. Really weird.

In other fashion related news, I just read an article on BBC about how fleeces aren't fashionable. I don't really get why they would or would not be fashionable, since I think fleeces are really worn for practicality, but what was more interesting was the fact that there were a ton of comments on the story debating the fashionable uses of fleeces. If you wanted to be fashionable, why would you wear a fleece anyway? It's not like anyone is arguing about it.

I met a cool guy on like Tuesday night. His name is Keisuke (the second one I've met!) and he's from Okinawa. He was a contact I got about cell (small?) group with my church. Anyway, we played some guitar and got to talking about hobbies. I have a lot of them. One of them is bowling, and he happened to like bowling too. We chatted about it for a while, and decided we would go bowling sometime. The next night (Wednesday) at around 11:30 PM, Keisuke showed up outside my door asking if I wanted to go bowling. I've never gone bowling that late. It was really fun though. Here's the thing: bowling alleys in China (or at this one) are really different from the ones in the US, and according to Keisuke, the ones in Japan too. You can't get any spin on the ball in the lanes here. You can like flick it as hard as you can and it will just go straight. If you have ever bowled with me, you know all I can do is spin (Anoop style). I scored the worst I've ever scored in bowling ever, but I started to learn how to throw straight. Anyway, this story wasn't about my poor bowling. It was about this other Japanese guy that Keisuke happened to know. This guy was good. I don't think I've ever seen a turkey before and I saw him get six. SIX TURKEYS. During the three games I watched him, he scored something like 184, 223, 193. This guy was nuts. Amazing bowling. Almost always got a strike or spare.

I was going to mention a couple other interesting things but now I forget what they are. Which is disappointing. But that gives me an excuse to write another time, which I find really exciting. If any of you guys go to the RJD2 concert, let me know how it goes!

Unabated Anger

I'm having a lot of fun making blog entry titles. This one is really accurate. I would say I'm generally not an angry person, and according to close friends, when I am angry, I'm a kind of sulky angry. Anyway, right now I'm a violent kind of angry. I seriously CANNOT believe that the semester I'm in China RJD2 comes to campus. This Friday. And I'm not there. And I know Middlebury has a history of people just going to see a concert because it's a concert, which has previously made performers unhappy. RJD2 is one of my favorite artists ever. UNABATED ANGER. I'm SO pissed. Anyway, I hope it passes quickly. I'm gonna make up for this by seeing him at least four times in the next two years. Anyway, for my Middlebury readers (I hope there are a lot of you), can you do me a favor? 1. Get a ticket to the show, borrow a video camera from the library, get a tape, and record the show. Then show it to me after I get back to school. 2. Ask MCAB to record the concert (if you/they don't know how I can tell you how). Please. Seriously.

Anyway, in my effort to regularly post twice a week, I've been trying to think of interesting thoughts to write here. I want to talk about how often I'm walking. It's a lot. I walk a little less than half an hour each way from and to class, which means its about a mile each way. I also walk to get all my meals. Then, of course, there's all the walking I do from my desk to the bathroom or my bed. Anyway, I walk a lot. I like it. I guess that wasn't as interesting as it seemed in my head.

Oh yeah another thing. I dress like a slob compared to people here. Based upon my observations in China, Americans (and sort of Canadians by extension?) are the sloppiest dressed people in the world. Or at least the developed world. I've been wearing my foursquare hoodie around everywhere and I seriously look like scruffy. Definitely not up to the standards of Chinese fashion. It was most obvious at church on Sunday. Even in the US, I'm generally the worst dressed person at Memorial Baptist (in Middlebury) and at Good Shepherd (at home). I've been wearing sweaters and button/collar shirts here, but wearing a sweatshirt on top of that was pretty not aesthetically pleasing. The guys there looked good, but the girls looked really good. The young women at my church are really good looking. Like really good looking. I can't really believe it. Anyway, that is to say I really need to put myself together and dress to...impress? Or at least not stick out due to my poor clothing choice.

I am getting back into a soul/neo-soul groove. I want a thick voice. Thick like gravy. A gravy-like voice. I would even settle for like an au jus-like voice. While I've been in China, my Chinese has definitely improved, but I'm surprised about the degree to which my English has degenerated. Sometimes when I think of words, I can't think of it in English or in Chinese. That's just bad.

Oh and,

I forgot to answer to my comments!

My handkerchief (is that spelled right? my spell check caught it) is, sadly, not monogrammed. And yes, I really have one now. I don't plan on hitchhiking because, for one, I think if I gave a thumbs up by any roads here I would just get really odd stares. The toilet paper is fine, I found a stash my roommate bought under the sink. The toilets are also mostly fine. In nicer places (including my dorm) they are just normal, but in most public places they are squat toilets. In those occasions, you have to bring your own toilet paper, which is on the awkward side of things. For some reason though, squat toilets are so satisfying. I don't know why. Indoor ski jumping is possible, but I didn't end up going (yet). Lastly, I have no idea why they thought he was gay. He seemed a little feminine I guess. He also had kind of nasty, wispy facial hair.

A Couple Days Late

So I meant to write an update sometime midweek, but that didn't end up happening, so this is the replacement! Many things have happened in the last week, but I don't think a lot of them are that interesting.

On the mundane side, classes started this week. There are 9 different levels of Chinese here, ranked from A, the easiest, to I, the hardest. I got placed into C and moved up to D. I really like my classmates - they are super cool. Most are older than I am too. I think a lot of people are here post-graduation looking to improve their Chinese. I have, although, met some really young kids - an 18 year old and a 15 year old both from Kazakhstan. Pretty mind-blowing. I got an electronic Chinese dictionary too. The thing is seriously a life saver. You can write the word right onto the touch screen and it will just check it up for you. It also has Sudoku puzzles so if you are bored in class you can sit around and play those. Additionally, you can add in MicroSD cards and play MP3s and MP4s (music and videos)...on your dictionary. Seriously? Speaking of amazing freaking technology, my Japanese friend has this crazy cell phone that is a touch screen when you flip it open and swivel the screen and a flip phone you don't swivel it. It's so crazy. It is an MP3 player, 5.2 megapixel camera, and plays LIVE TV. LIKE LIVE TELEVISION, FULL PROGRAMS. Oh, and of course internet, instant messaging, email, and all that other basic stuff. It's nuts. Oh, and it has a little Goku that flies around the screen. That's like the cherry on top.

This weekend, two of my good friends Kenzie Chin and Vrutika Mody, from Middlebury, came to Shanghai! I successfully snuck them into the foreign dorms five people-nights. 3 nights for Tika and 2 for Kenzie. It was no small feat. I took this opportunity to both speak candidly to people I knew in English, which was awesome, and to finally explore the touristy sites in Shanghai. We went to Nanjing Road, a shopping hotspot (where I bought things from UNIQLO!), the Bund (along the western side of the Huang Pu river), Xintiandi, this really nice upscale kind of foreign place, the French Concession, Old Town, and to see my grandmother. It was cool but also weird since I had seen most of those touristy sites before on previous trips to Shanghai. I felt kind of naked without my parents around me. It was really fun though. I'll try to get pictures from them later.

So I don't remember if I have written about having a roommate before, but if I haven't, the short story is that I'm in a double and when I moved in all my roommate's stuff was here (computer, cell phone, watch, clothes, toothbrush, towel, etc.) and he wasn't here for the first two weeks. Every night I was a little worried that when I woke up there would be another guy in my room, and the longer it took before he got here the more freaked out I got. To the point where I thought he might have just like died. Seriously freaked out. Anyway, in hosting (against the rules) my two friends, I was even more worried, since my two friends were on our respective beds and I was on the floor. Anyway, the night before we had all had dreams about my roommate coming in and like it being really awkward. Last night it happened, at around 6 AM. I guess he was traveling in Hainan. We heard the door open and saw a pretty tall guy just standing in the doorway and I was like oh crap. It was pretty odd. Anyway, he's Polish, and surprisingly tan for a Polish guy. He also has huge feet. They are surprisingly large.

Anyway, I can't seem to remember the answer to my security question for my credit card. My bill is HUGE. When I tried to look at my statement they asked me my security question, which I know the answer to, and I couldn't seem to remember how to type it correctly. I tried a couple times and I can't get in, which is troubling. You guys might know this (and this will show how ridiculous I am) - If I could control my height, how tall would I be? (and for bonus, why?)

I'll holler again later. I'm getting McDonalds for lunch. I don't know why it seems so much more appealing in China.

All-Star Weekend

I missed it. All the festivities of All-Star Weekend. Because I am in China and didn't want to pay for my TV to work. Lame. Instead, I watched this video: Vinsanity. I've seen it over and over again and it just doesn't get old. I'm pretty sure I just saw a cockroach scuttle from my bathroom into my dorm room wall. China.

Anyway, some of you might ask how my last week has been! It's been good. I've branched out from just hanging out with Californians to hanging out with various Mexican, New Zealand, Japanese, Guinean, American, Ukrainian, and other peoples. It's been pretty fun. I've now been to a total of six clubs in Shanghai. All of them reek of tobacco smoke. Like seriously reek. I guess there are no laws about smoking inside here so it's legitimately like second-hand smoking several packs of cigarettes. Also, the smell is like impossible to get out. With my new international friends, I've gotten a chance to practice a ton of ... English. We haven't started Chinese classes yet so I've been speaking English to them as our only form of communication. I have, however, been starting to learn Japanese and Spanish (again) and refreshing some French. Also, I picked up a couple Ukrainian phrases.

While shopping in the underground market (not illegal, just under the ground) by the Shanghai Museum of Science and Technology, I went into a nice store that sold like fake designer button-down shirts and stuff. The point of the story is that I got two shirts, two ties, a hankerchief, and a set of cufflinks for about $30 (US). However, inside the store there was an Asian boy. I mean besides me. My friends that I was shopping with were convinced that 1. he was super cute and 2. he was absolutely gay. The guy that was with us apparently was gay also. Since I was the only one of the four of us who had any Chinese experience, it was apparently up to me to invite him out that night, ask for a picture, get his number, and ask if the gay guy with us could get a kiss. I got no for an answer, got a picture and his number, and there was no gay kissing. Success?

My health is doing fine so far. I had a bowl of ma la tang (spicy soup?), which is kind of like a solo super-cheap hot pot place. Actually I had two bowls, but I'm pretty sure my last four days of straight stomachaches can be attributed to the second bowl. Anyway, the way the ma la tang place works is that you pick everything you want in your soup (I picked tofu skin, bok choy, noodles, mushrooms, and some other crap) and then they just toss it into a huge pot and make it for you with their soup base. I'm pretty sure it gave me extended food poisoning. That or a similar stomach virus that I got last summer while I was here that basically incapacitated me. I hope it's not that though. Speaking of health, I got to see my grandmother four or five days ago, which was nice. Her health is apparently improving quite rapidly, which is good. I would appreciate prayers for both our healths. After I visited my grandmother, my uncle took me out for dinner. I ate some pigeon. It was quite fragrant. That's a word they use a lot in China, particularly in relation to food.

Classes start tomorrow and last night I only got four hours of sleep, so I'm gonna go sleep now. I'm pretty tired. I'll write again really soon with other random thoughts. Comment so I know you are alive! Also it makes my day!

addendum

I just got some noodles for dinner and while eating it in the shop I heard in order Take it Easy by Mika and the intro track for Kanye's Graduation. Ridiculous

Lazier Afternoons

So I got a dorm room in the foreign students dorm on the fifth floor. Apparently I'm legally not allowed to live with a Chinese citizen. That's nuts. Anyway, My dad's best friend and his wife housed me for a couple days and then helped me move in. They are super nice. Also, he looks like a guy in a manga that I read (20th Century Boys) that looks like a frog. Apparently in the dorms here you have to pay for pretty much everything because only the room and furniture are included in the dorm fee. That means I'm getting charged for the internet per hour, have to pay for the TV, and have to buy my own toilet paper. Oh, and water. No drinking tap water here.

Oddly enough, the first meal here I braved alone ended up being across the street from my room at an Indian restaurant (I took Simon's advice) where the lao ban spoke English. Some exciting adventure that was. While in China, I have started to be a bit more observant of the things around me, probably for a couple reasons. The first is that walking around right now I don't really have anyone to talk to, and if I do, it's a pretty big challenge to say interesting things in Chinese. A possible second is that there are just some things that I think are really peculiar here. For instance, pedestrians have like the least precedence, even on sidewalks. Cars go first, then mopeds, then electric bikes, and people on the street (lots of them) try not to die while walking around. There are condom dispensers everywhere along the streets, which I think is a little creepy. But I guess it's for a good cause - they are trying to prevent AIDS and the dispensers say so. There are a lot more sexually-ambiguously dressed people in China. Lots of guys wear really skinny pants and tight low-cut shirts and have really really long hair styled like girls' hair. Some girls also dress like dudes. I guess that's cool.

Walking around now since I can't talk as much, I end up thinking about things I would write in my blog, but then realize no one wants to read super long diatribes anyway. I went to a Wal-Mart to buy all my dorm stuff. How lame and American. I ran into some interesting people here at Fudan U too, including a girl I went to middle school with, another Warriors fan, and one of Stephanie and Teresa's freshman year suitemates. Who I creepily recognized. Lots of kids here are from the UCs on that EAP thing.

Paul Hildebrand (hi!) wrote me a fantastic email saying that I write like I talk. That's pretty cool. Anyway, for regularity, there are trade rumors going around (reputable ones) about either a Monta Randolph/Stoudemire or Beidrins Randolph/Stoudemire (or C. Bosh, but apparently the Raptors aren't interested) trade possibly going down. I feel so torn! I love Bosh and Stoudemire is sick, but I also love Monta and Beins. What to do as a Warriors fan! Can't we just drop Jamal and Magette for either! Also, would it be too ridiculous to blow $900 (American) to fly to Harbin and ski for five days and skip class? My parents read this now so I wonder what they think. I'm seriously already going through ski withdrawl though. I might go ski sometime this week or next week at the indoor place in Shanghai.

Most of the cool abroad blogs I got to read last semester had exciting adventure stories about climbing places or hitch hiking places or jumping into things. I don't think I'll have to many of those since I'm in a big city, but I really want to. I'll try to mire myself in something.

Day 2.5

I'm going to update again soon. My internet just started working. I got a dorm room. Also, green on orange is a great color combination. I'll also change the title since it's no longer true.

I was on the plane.

I'm not on the plane anymore but I was when I wrote this.

I'm on the plane to China right now. I'll be back in the US somewhere around mid-July and back at Midd probably next fall. Anyway, I'm sorry for not updating this thing in near two months.
A lot of people ask me if I'm excited for China. Up to about an hour ago I definitely would have carefully said no, but it's starting to happen. I ended up meeting a fifth-year at UCSD who will be studying at the same university as I will and we chatted about it a little, which really helped put my mind at ease. The food should be awesome too. As of now, however, I still have no arrangements for living because I missed the dormitory application date (there was only a two day window!), so hopefully I can still get a room on campus.

The saddest thing about going to China, however, is that my ski season was abruptly curtailed. I had a dream last night that it was all a joke and instead of studying abroad in China I was going to take the rest of the semester in Colorado. That would have been sweet. It seems almost evil for a season to end for such a reason before even February arrived. Evil. It wasn't too bad though, since I had quite a fun and productive season when I was on the snow. I guess pre-season starts now for me though. I found out there are great flatland exercises to get prepped for better skiing, so I'm going try that out with the free time I have on campus. Also, China has like an indoor 1-run "mountain" that rents out snow clothes along with its 1960 era skis, so hopefully they haven't closed down yet and I'll get to check that place out a couple times. They have some small kickers and rails and a random kids' playhouse that you can tap and jib on. Ghetto ice-snow though.

Skiing, along with the rest of life, has presented me with an odd dilemma though. I am sort of directionless as far as a career goes, although most the adults around me that I know and respect tell me I don't have too much to worry about. I figured the easiest way to decide what to do is to figure out what I like doing, but when I thought about it, what I really like doing is skiing. I realized over this break that I actually like skiing more than I like eating, and that is scary. However, I don't think I can ski professionally, and it seems most the jobs that enable people to ski the most aren't particularly career-suited unless I work some business job for either a ski resort, equipment manufacturer, or service provider (any of which would be an awesome job). Should I pursue that in hopes of having a life where skiing is constantly at my fingertips or a job that makes hella bank so I can pay to go skiing frequently and do other things too? Man that's such a hard question.

Someone pointed out recently (and correctly) that my blog is pretty much about three things: math, skiing, and the Warriors. Math will probably be on hold for a little while and be replaced by escapades in China, skiing will probably stay, and I definitely can't stop liking the Warriors, as bad as they might be (although they routed the Suns recently). Teresa Wu says, however, that a good blog is about more than just a person's life and hobbies. So what else should I write about to make this professional and interesting? Holler back. Also, I'll be on Skype since China is a hassle to call to. Look for my name. It'll be there. I'll write again when I'm no longer airborne.