Sports Kit, Good News For a Friend, Realization

Went for a jog today with the nike sports kit, about 1 hr up steep hill downhill, felt good after drinking etc last night. Thoughts on the future etc, not much in general, on the creative side trying to figure out how to make work situation more interesting. Thoughts etc, on dividing work into specific compartments focused on individual problems, rather than being overly spread out as a possible way of addressing more difficult problems etc.

On the exercise + effects on reality front, again notice that I am meeting many more different people extremely strange, since getting back into rapid foot motions. Notion of being able to cram a lot more things into a small space at the moment which is useful.

Important notice, old friend of mine from teaching days 4 years ago or so, is moving to Philadelphia, he’s chinese, never been to the us, but as seems to be the case seems to speak better english than many of the people who have lived abroad and come back – sea turtles – maybe its just natural talent, or living far away from the object of his interest has allowed him to magnify it. In any case, he has managed to accomplish something rather rare and new in going to teach Chinese in the US for a year, and it will an peculiar comparison to the treatment of foreign teachers coming to China, like zoo monkeys/ kings of some sort.

Final note of value, based on conversations etc, starting to realize that the key to everything in China may be based on the the ability to entertain people for long periods of time, my experiences in this are limited, but when I run into business-ish types here they generally tend to throw me throw what seems to be a pre-manufactured amusement park of meetings with people which is slightly unnatural and which seems very unpractical at the time, the startling realization when you see their true planning face behind the spectacle being present, that they are likely honing their entertainment skills. Whether you can classify this as good or bad, matters not, but it obviously requires slightly complex thinking which was set in the beginning at some point and than followed.

Exercise effects on my reality (probably same for everyone)

Hard to explain how much of an impact running has on my sense of time in general. Last weekend went running twice, than played soccer for about 2 hours. During these periods of running, somehow I was able to cram a lot more activity into my schedule than normal. Whereas I normally will sit around on the weekend, look for a restaurant, potentially go eat dinner with friends, finally end up walking around for a long period of time, during periods of massive exercise, quick footsteps, I seem to do many more things. Almost like I spend less time on one specific activity, and also am slightly more involved in planning things out. In addition things don’t seem to hit me as deeply since I am in a strange sort of haze after the exercise and after period that fills up 50% of my brain. To put it one way, I think that during exercise, even more competitive sports like indoor soccer, massive amounts of energy are released, and afterwords you are in an immense state of relaxation, I’m not quite sure whether the after period should be called concentration or blissful distraction, although I think a major benefit of it is that it seems to kick the unconscious part of my mind into higher gear. Another way of saying it would be that it seems like I am able to hold a thought for a longer period of time in mind while being occupied in other ways. When I stop working out hard, on the other hand, my reality almost seems to speed up at times, in a sense that the greater thoughts that I am holding on to during time periods are cut down, and instead my thoughts tend to skip around more quickly as does my reality. So I guess on the positive side, exercise, through relaxation etc, can lead to a sort of blind persistence where you are hard to budge, perhaps because you are too tired from jumping around, on the other hand, for myself at least, exercise makes me antisocial in a sense that I don’t feel as many sudden ‘urges’ to do things, given that I am quite content in my sitting state at the time. My objective in exercise is obviously not to render my self in to a motionless potato, but rather to clear from my thoughts many of the distractions which seem to be less prevalent in a more relaxed state.

对于我的中文，上个周末，遭遇了很多联系汉语的机会，跟工作的同喜，跟我的朋友，而且跟别的大连人，也学过新的字可是不知道怎么写。很多新学的字都是大连话。 为了学习汉字，在书店买了一本中文文章的课文，内容有几个有名的中国人的作者在写文章。每个文章也有英文翻译。昨天看到了的，作者在表达他跟他喜欢的书的关系，他写的他非常喜欢买书，可是不爱借他们，因为买的时候才能领情。

Future

Am starting to think that everything is too easy at the moment, hardest thing for me to do right now is going to be to make it through the next 3 months here given that alternatives of being free seem so promising, first of all I have incentive to stay for at least one year (until october) based on the fact that I will be able to leave without having to pay back associated costs of bringing me over here. Second issue being related to a visa, given that leaving might force me into a situation of no visa. Reasons to stay at this point would involve being able to have something good on my resume, along with having something to occupy my time with on a daily basis and a source of income.

Second issue is just involved with getting back into habits of running in order to force myself on to a positive track, not get pulled down by general negative thoughts etc. Third being that I am going to have to start digging really deep for different ‘job’ opportunities and possibilities, the recent interview I had didn’t work out, so I’m going to have to push for more. Unfortunately, it seems that the majority of the interviews that I’ve gotten here have been through headhunters who have come into contact with my resume, or the same initial headhunter who came here, so one goal that I have would be to go out and find a way to get direct contact with companies etc themselves rather than having to rely on a third party. So basically a main goal at the moment is to try to get more interviews, along with trying to figure out how to impress the interviewers into hiring me. In my first recent interview in a long time, they told me that I seemed tired, unenergetic, and perhaps impatient, so I am going to have to work on ways of pushing those levels up in order to appear more compatible on the surface. Obviously I can’t change my personality 100% to fit a job, but I can do my best to improve in certain areas or ready myself to get closer to the jobs that I want. I also think that one challenging issue is in taking what you have on your resume, and twisting it to a degree that companies will be attracted by. I mean you can say things in a downright honest way, or you can try to sugar-coat them in a positive light, although you may be taking a risk that they will see through your ploy, on the other hand it seems that a lot of the time, these ploys turn out to work for people, so maybe the best thing is to keep up a certain sugarcoating to attract companies. Obviously there has to be a degree of honesty or reality in any undertaking, but maybe the skill to be energetic, and sugar coat in itself is more useful than others, especially when combined with a degree of other skills.

生活；最近的面试

生活最近还好了，工作不太好玩可是钱赚的好

昨天下午去了面试，公司是大连软件园，他们是那种招商公司，就是让别的公司来这里工作
好想让别的公司来这里办公司

比如说，他们几年以前请惠菩，IBM, 还有别的ＢＰＯ 的公司来大连。 他们也有办公室在软件园， 北京
上海，武汉，别的城市

我做面试的时候， 经理跟我讲的一半是汉语，一半是英语，他们告诉我应该多学习中文为了作好这个
工作

我申请的职位是项目经理，目标就是请别的公司来他们的办公室，还有维护老客户，让他们都呆大连

我真非常喜欢这个工作，可是面试以后经理告诉我有几个问题，所以不确定他们是否要用我，
我很焦急因为我怕失去这个机会

Dalian Expat

As usual, have managed to have a good time at the Dalian expat area, generally go there and meet a few interesting people. A guy from India who has been studying to be a doctor at a medical university in Dalian, for example. So it is a very interesting experience, and also a good opportunity to see quite a few foreigners who are sitting around. I was also going to go on a trip to a cherry orchard with my workmates, but since it started raining in the morning I didn’t do that or go running as planned, just ended up going to the expat meeting, drinking a bunch of coffee, and finally coming home.

Unfortunately coming home, I did feel very sick after drinking a lot of coffee and eating some pizza. Had pizza at this place called pizza time, which tasted great, but may have been the cause of my stomach pain. Basically a feeling like I am choking. I haven’t been smoking recently, so I am not sure where this painful feeling is coming from, and it is also giving me a head ache. I think that it may be in relation to working in the night shift, so I am starting to realize that I need to get a day job of some because living in the night has to be bad for my health. Also I’m starting to see that it is pretty hard to maintain good friendships after moving to the night, because everything gets cut off from normally reality whether related to schedule or normal life. I like Dalian, but the night shift life is killing me, and I think what might be best for me would be to get into school somewhere here and stick there for a couple of years.

Back into running

After a long period of no running, this weekend I joined up with a group of a few and went for a good run,
and I’m going for another one today.

Yesterday we ran around Xinghai park, in about an hour I’m going to be running up some hills, I am in pain
everywhere, but nevertheless enjoying it as a break from work. Hopefully I will be able to keep this up
for more than a couple of months.

Other than that, am getting slightly overwhelmed at work by people trying to practice english, at the same time finally having an opportunity to practice chinese with new hires, will be interesting to see how things develop here.

Thursday

Wow, thursday, almost friday here, have managed to get nearly through the day without major mishaps,
one major annoyance -> a career development etc seminar to go to, secretary tells me that I don’t
need to go to it because I don’t speak chinese, new hire next to me sticks up for me, damn so can go
second interesting issue, have recently gotten an interesting job offer related to from sales in dalian
software park, would like to get my foot in the door there etc, also required to translate my
resume into Chinese, probably going to rely on old translation, should prove
to be useful than get assistance from other people on perfecting new parts to it, would be sick
to be involved in some where I had more chances to practice 2 sides, although likely headhunter
is trying to sneak me into some sort of a english teaching trap,

anyways first objective on going home will be to go and try to get rest of resume completed,
open another bank account etc trying to decide whether I should take a night off of work or
not here, an extremely interesting life style going on here

Back into running

Recently have managed to come into contact with a group of runners in Dalian, very pleased, will be able to motivate myself to get back into running if it turns out well. They are all from around Dalian, and they will be running around 10-15km at a time, which will allow me to push myself to get back into the sport.

In terms of running – ish goals, best thing I can’t push for at the moment is the Beijing Marathon which is coming up in October, in order to get involved in this I will need to go through a health check, application, etc, so that should be a positive way of getting involved. Of course it will also require going to Beijing etc.

On the job hunt front, I have found access to a few good websites for looking for jobs recently, one of them being Shanghai expat, another Dalian xpat, so both of these will be good places to start.

Third issue being consideration of starting sort of a programming related business etc -> possibility could be making games, although at the moment, the idea which strikes me as the most genius would be related to making a rubix cube type, which you could cover with some sort of a pattern related to Chinese characters or parts, and afterwords, would have to figure out how to put it back together based on these parts. Of course the target market for this may only be myself, although I could also attempt to market it to emerging Chinese learners etc/ english teacher field in China, although not sure if they are large enough of a population to strike interest, although their money supply is large.

Back

Back into a situation of writing on a regular basis, is a good thing, notice that every time I try to write the word ‘definitely’ I get mixed up over where the ‘e’ goes, must be a sign of immense stupidity.

Anyways, current work position starting to give me enough time and concentration practice in between calls to continue studying Chinese etc, need to also figure out how I can build up practice and concentration in the process. Just an extremely bizarre work environment in which I am working in at the moment, which I think is making it extremely difficult to live a normal process over a long period of time. It seems like a variety of short term solutions have been created which have made the system ineffective.

Tired of Being Uncreative

Not sure how best to describe this, but a few things that are majorly lacking here for me at the moment, cutting down on my ambition. One of those being control over my time, a lack of ability to meet other Americans, English here etc, so I am going to try really hard starting from now to go ahead and try to meet a ton of foreigners out there, I think that they can do a lot to get in touch with myself, especially in a situation where I am surrounded by the unknown masses. In the past I have struggled to get in touch with the ‘foreign masses’ but at the moment in the getting back in touch with my self etc type of phase, given that I am surrounded by people speaking a different language etc, who most of the time see me as different, yet I have adapted to a degree of understanding here, but am starting to lose touch with the us connection. What I am really trying to do at the moment is get back together the sense of connection with the US etc, at the same time living here. I have no intention whatsoever of giving up on aspirations etc, so I am still facing a few options, trying to figure out which is the best way to go, and what steps I can take to go in those directions. I know for example that I can push in a few different directions, or send out a million of job applications online and hope that one of them might hit somewhere, but it doesn’t seem to work very well. Another option would be to pick an area that I’m interested in, such as Chinese or Journalism, and to just start putting all my efforts into amassing links to those areas. I think in the case of journalism for example, there are a ton of websites out there which I could link to, but unfortunately, I don’t have enough published writing of any kind to get myself attention, so that could also be a necessary step in development. What I would really like to do would be able to be in control of as many situations in life as possible, and also be productive and moving. I don’t want to be particularly exceptional in a way, although I would like to pull people around me up as much as possible, and I would like to find ways to make a positive difference in the world. One thing that I don’t doubt, is that I am getting bored by sameness, and that is the point of this blog in part, because the majority of what I see here is based on constant sameness, and I would much rather find a way to blend art and music into my life, along with a degree of repetition, because I cannot live in a pit of sameness anymore, I mean work is interesting enough to get me through the days, but in terms of future development, I can’t see myself going anywhere unless I am able to transfer to a different department which also seems improbable, I am also lacking a specific challenge of any kind, unless I spend my whole time playing rubix cube or chess and obsessing. And while certain people are going off and doing immensely amazing things, I am in the same place surrounded by way too many people, unable to find a peaceful spot whatsoever. What I previously thought was that the best idea was to simply live in a place with a lot of people, because work was slow, but at the moment it is the opposite. I am working around a group of people, although we are doing the same thing, but it still helps us to get through the day, and than outside of work it is relatively peaceful, but I think it is just extremely difficult to find the balance in general, and it is also difficult just to create something in general, because all there is out there is blank emptiness, and nothing else, and it is boring, unless I can start finding some better challenges in life, and some sort of a more optimistic mentality. Not that my mentality was more optimistic before, or that it will be more optimistic in the future, like Voltaire wrote Candide ridiculing Candide, I also think that it is good to have a down to earth view of the world. I think that what I really need to do is stand up, and start figuring out how to improve myself and the world, I don’t want to become a potato of the masses, and I’d like to get involved in a marketing internship, or a challenge of some kind that will be useful in my life, because at the moment there is no positive challenge. I have managed to bridge a certain gap of being to work and communicate with people at work, which I believe was more challenging before, but it is also starting to show me how there are different sides. So maybe my writing here is all useless jumble, but nevertheless it is the only thing that I do today freely.