2012

I watched two versions of 2012 on youku today, the old one and the new one. Both of them involve situations in which the world is nearing destruction based on some sort of chaotic event. The older one actually seemed more interesting in that it brought up a philosophical discussion related to religion versus non-religion, although it did get out of control and silly when a main character blamed someone’s death as a punishment from god. I’m not sure whether the original producers of the movie were specifically meaning to be religious fanatics, because the movie could definitely be taken that way. On the other hand it suffers from some bad acting.

The newer version of 2012, actually suffers from worse acting, along with less of a philosophical / religious plot, which makes it pretty boring in general. Basically the same things are happening, but in a smaller setting. There is more of a focus on action, and special effects rather than any engaging ideas. If I had to pick I’d chose the first one.

Thoughts on Ethics, Honesty, Responsibility

Put a basic website together for a friend, very exciting,

Perhaps more interesting being that I’m going to be moving in the next couple of weeks. And also have an extremely wandering train of thought, just looking back at my title for this entry and realizing how far away it is from my current thought. Wow.

What I was trying to say in the beginning, was that they handed out evaluations for teamleads/trainers at work today, which was interesting to see. Given the fact that the trainers/leads etc don’t have specific pressures on them most of the time, this is a very useful occasion to evaluate their performance and behavior, given that the vast majority of the team are being evaluated on a very detailed level. I think that it would have been better for the team to have an opportunity to choose a specific group to meet together and make evaluations, rather than trainers themselves giving out the data/ surveys.

So given that the team is being given constant emails related to ‘duty’ and ‘responsibility’, there are a few things which I see as being heavily valued. First is commitement; for example people who have stayed for 2 or more years, are given much more leeway and freedom than newcomers. It doesn’t matter how good performance is in relation to the new versus old, the basic fact is that the old-timers are given more freedom and power. There seems to be a large emphasis at work towards keeping people there for a long period of time, and they are attempting to enforce this by giving promotions to people who have been there for the longest.

What seems to be lacking though at times is that they are putting old-timers up based on the experience, but this don’t change the fact that some of these people may not be extremely detail orientated, or role models.

Breaking Winter Laziness Bugs

Starting to get cold out here, so has dampened my enthusiasm for running. I read an article online that it should be ok to jog if the weather is above 10F, so decided that I might as well give it a shot. It really has been quite necessary given that I work in an office, and don’t have many other opportunities to exercise, for me to get out there and run. So far I’ve gone twice, both times wearing fairly thick clothes along with a warm hat. Both times have gone well enough, never too cold and actually heat up quite well. There is a marathon in Dalian in around 5 months I believe, and am thinking that it would be nice to try to get involved in it, see if I can move my time up. Other than that things are the same as usual, working, recently have been getting into learning some html/css etc, atm have figured out how to put frames together, build menus etc, am now working towards making it all look good.

Second thing that has been occupying my mind recently has been relating to making food rather than going out to eat. Have been doing this for a couple of weeks, and so far the results have been satisfactory in making life different, but at the same time have possibly been eating less. Time will tell if I can stick with this pattern.

Woke up at midnight

Just woke up at 2am am sick today and really can’t talk so didn’t go to work, unfortunately it is night time so not much too do out there, and there is also an extremely loud buzzing noise going on which is killing my ears. The winter time here up to know has been pretty slow, because of the cold my exercise regimen has been suffering.

A few major thoughts going through my mind at the moment ranging from continuing to study chinese, to making website/ learning something useful, to trying to figure out some new things to eat because I’m tired of eating the same foods every week. I’m also faced with a few choices in the future here, so going to have to deal with them before they run me over.

Most exciting thing which has happened to me recently, was going to Brooklyn bar/weekend for the past few weekends where I’ve finally been running into more westerners giving that where I am right now, and out and around, there are a major shortage of them. Not that I came to China specifically to meet/hang out with Americans but I do get home sick a lot of the time and a major cure for it is good food.

Final major thought need to think about here is that my work here in US terms is not paying well at all, although it may be good for Dalian, so it would not be wise for me to work myself into the ground for a job that is not going to make me rich, or put something extremely beneficial on my resume either. In fact it seems incredibly stupid that I am working a monthly night shift for a mere 300 dollars worth. I could get this same amount of money on a monthly basis simply teaching 3 or 4 days of english.

What I hope to accomplish today if not in the next couple of days

I’ve been wanting to go to the dentist to get my tooth fixed, look at new apartments in a more interesting area, study some web/design related ideas, sign up for a month or so pass at a gym possibly with swimming possibilities, and potentially get a bike + look into the idea of getting into tri training, except for the fact that my swimming is probably very weak; also look at ideas of studying and going to school again. I also want to figure out how to publish my wordpress posts on facebook, but unfortunately china wall is to strong, so might have to look at doing it at work;

Second, recent sickening thought/ comment, I am slightly disgusted by the notion that the entire universe is being restricted into the internet. It is good in a sense of opening up the world, but bad in the sense of creating extremely anti-social behavior. In terms of existing as a human being in some sort of a natural state, sitting in front of a computer may offer communication possibilities in a reading sense, but it only appeals to a few senses, so I would prefer if the future were able to deviate from the internet instead of being totally consumed in it.

Last thing I need to accomplish is to try and get in touch with a few graphics design companies here, preferably today.

Food today

Tonight I had xiaolongbao, tea, oranges, and tomatoes + cucumbers in lemon juice. As usual I always enjoy the cucs and lemon, the xiaolongbao were also great, but nevertheless I’m still feeling not totally satisfied food wise. Am trying to move away from the usual hot pot, grill, + korean fried beef rice at night every day or a piece of bread on its own, with mcdonalds every other day. So, whats the best direction to move in here. More fried dumplings and more spicy food are two things I need more of in my life. The nice thing about spicy food is that it wakes up my mind alittle and makes me talkative, social etc, pretty personal info eh

NCKIU quizzes

In dealing with work + boredom + nothing wrong with making money while bored but trying to figure out how to be productive at the same time, having been taking some simple chinese quizzes online at nckiu.com; keeps time flowing and seemlingy productive, trying to work on HSK list, although i’m sure there could be more productive ways of doing it, second playing chinese memory games on another website, both entertaining,

3 things done today 1) making a transition from eating at restaurants every day to making food / eating at home; first step to this has been based on buying easy to make but tasty foods; current favorite new easy to make discovery is ‘xiao long bao’ small dragon loaves, very easy to make using a rice-maker converted to a steamer, simply put the buns in, let them cook and eat with vineagar, the negative side of being that the frozen buns don’t have the juicy goodness that regular buns have on the inside- missing most of the juice, but nevertheless extremely delicious, I brought some but not enough to work

second thing I have been pigging out on has been baby tomatoes in lemon juice with salt, these are easy to get, easy to cut up and taste, I’m not sure exactly how nutritious, but can eat a lot of them and still enjoy it, these two things are a start at least at changing my diet from the usual mcdonalds + hotpot + grilled meats which I have been living on for the past 7 months,

On the tea front, I made a massive cup of green tea at the start of work today, after waiting for the tea leaves to wilt, I drank it without having to get them in my teeth, and it gave me a massive boost of energy / adrenaline to a freaky degree, which ran out after about 4 hours,now trying red tea will see how it goes

Running and Right Knee Pain

After running the marathon, didn’t run for about 3 weeks, and than the weather started getting so cold that I was becoming a potato, so finally went out on a treadmill the other day. Unfortunately, my right leg started hurting after about 5k, same thing happened again the other day, right leg started hurting after 5k. It does’nt hurt when I walk normally, but speeding up will start to ache around the knee, will hopefully be able to work this out in the next couple of weeks, also going to be an interesting challenge figuring out how to run during the winter, especially given hatred of the treadmill, in addition trying to figure out some other cool events to run in marathon/ triatholon something, would need to learn how to swim if I want to do that though, but would probably be a good experience. My major dislike about the Beijing marathon was that it was extremely flat, combined with the fact that my right leg started hurting. It is extremely boring going for such a long period of time without any change in elevation, so the best tactic is possibly just to hang on to some one in front of you and simply keep on going with it. I really have to figure out how to get into another marathon in the next 5-6 months and finish it at a better time, because I know I can do much better. A major issue is going to be making sure that my right leg can hold out for longer.

Green Tea

Been drinking green tea on a regular basis recently, thinking about how to make the tea taste best; seems like after a few pours, the tea starts to get sweeter, taste better etc

Winter Running + Job Hunting + killing these pumpkin flies on my desk

Extremely cold out all of the sudden, haven’t ran for about 3 weeks since the marathon, so had to figure out how to fight through this to get some exercise in; through help of gfriend managed to get a free run at a local peace square gym; managed to run about 5 kilometers before my right leg and feet started hurting a lot; going to be an interesting challenge trying to keep it up in this environment;

Other than that thinking of preparing to do the HKS 1, extremely low level Chinese test, but because of the writing side at least, worth passing, might take me 2 years to level from 1 – 8, but by the end should be able to read newspapers, hmm, one thought on this side is to apply for a february starting class at qinghua university for about 6 months, of course this would cut off my money income unless I can find some side english teaching etc, method of preparing for this, same as usual, practice practice,

going to have to start from the basics again and build up; what I wouldn’t give for 5-6 months of nothing to do but think and prepare right now, although work is nice because of money, plus giving me something to do;

Other thoughts options; applying to grad school in the US, looking for other good jobs in China, working through HP for a few years and trying to transfer somewhere else; going to Shanghai and trying to push into something ;being more aggressive in general; going on a trip and taking pictures, posting them on the internet; signing up for another marathon or triatholon and actually doing good on it this time, unfortunately too freaking cold outside, and I hate running on treadmills.

Third plan at the moment, related to recruiting graphic designers this side to work on design US and make US side profits (actually dads plan) but sounds nice because of the money + freedom associated, if I could get something like that started could just study most of the time and not have to worry about the rest of it;