All posts tagged: random

A Rather Busy Day

One of the fun things about my life in China is that sometimes you can have rather busy days. Like today. Today, I was invited to a wedding of two colleagues – so I was out this morning and for lunch. Today, I also had to do a lot of packing, since I’m moving, and I’ll be traveling, too. Today, I also wanted to go and play tennis for the last time in several months. Today, I went to the foreign-faculty-end-of-the-year banquet for dinner. And today, I have to go to bed early, since tomorrow I’ll have to head out at 6 am, and I’m planning to use my travel time to work on some more assignments – so no late night and sleeping on the airplane. Now, the fun about this is that it’s actually possible! I can do all of these things in one day, and not even feel stressed about it. I guess I could “blame” that on life in China as well, because I know at the end of the day …

Of Cameras and Travels

This is what happens when you allow your camera to go traveling with a friend who wanted to borrow it: It gets to see all the places that you wish you could have gone to instead. I wish, my friend had just asked if he could take me instead of my camera to come along with him. I would have certainly appreciated to see those places more than my camera. But I guess that’s the purpose of my camera’s existence: traveling, seeing beautiful places, experiencing fun moments. And I? I just have to be content with looking at the pictures … … and hope that one day, I’ll get to go myself!

Strawberry Season

They’re red. They’re soft. And oh so sweet and yummy! You guessed it, of course! It’s strawberry season. And with a fruit store across the street from where I live, of course, it’s impossible to resist that temptation to stop by, and get myself a handful (or maybe a bag-ful) of this yummy treat. Good thing is, I can buy them in portions as I’ll eat them. So, I don’t have to fear they go bad before I’ve been able to devour them. Yes, I love fruit stores that don’t have everything pre-packed and portioned. One of the advantages of living in China!

Here Comes More Learning

My books have arrived. Which means I’ll be very, very busy trying to catch up on all that work and reading that needs to be done before school. Which also means, that I’ll probably not have much time for blogging in the next 3 months. Which means, it looks like I lost interest in blogging. Which means, whoever thinks that I lost interest actually isn’t right, coz I still have just as much fun blogging as ever. It’s just a problem with my time. But I’ll fix that. As soon as I can. Promise!

Sweet Dreams

I like sleeping in. There’s something comforting to being able to turn around in bed once more, snuggle in your blankets and continue to snooze around for just a couple more minutes. Or a half hour. Or an hour. Or more. The problem for me: sleeping in isn’t an option, lately. Every Saturday morning I have to chat at 8 am for the course I’m taking, and by Sunday (the only day I actually get to sleep in), my internal biological clock is fine tuned so well, that I’ll be up well before the “wake-up-hour” I’ve determined to be a sensible time. Oh, how I wish for that extra half hour, or hour or so.

Physicals

It just dawned on me that I probably never shared with you about our experiences with physicals. Maybe that’s because last year we were lucky and didn’t have to go get the physicals. This year, however, that luck didn’t hold. So with a group of about 20 of my colleagues, we traveled into town for one purpose: the pleasure of experiencing physical examination as if being the object in an assembly line. ECG, eye sight testing, weight, blood pressure, blood testing, urine, ultrasound, and all these good things are all part of our physicals, though, sometimes, I wonder how relevant the information is. Allow me to illustrate. My first year of doing physicals, my weight was measured while I was fully dressed (for winter), wearing shoes, and carried a backpack with me. Yep. That’s the plain ole truth, though sad as it is, it doesn’t tell the truth about my actual weight. And it makes me wonder: Do they do it this way to support the “evidence” that all foreigners are “fat?” Whatever the case, …

The Bedroom Advantage

I have a living room and a bedroom (like most any other ordinary human being of my standing). Usually, I prefer to sit in my living room to work on/with my computer, go online (thanks to wi-fi I can do that), skype, watch movies, etc. But recently I’ve made a discovery: Internet in my bedroom works way better than the internet in my living room. It might be, because the wireless router is in the bedroom. But no matter what the reasons for this, I guess my bedroom now will be honored with my presence a lot more than it has been in the past. At least over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been doing the trek of carrying my computer to the bedroom a lot more than I used to.

Slowing Down

Have you realized lately that my blogging has become rather scarce? Well, I can assure you it’s neither a lack of enthusiasm for blogging nor a lack of topics to talk about that caused me to slow down. I enjoy blogging just as much as when I first started out (or maybe even more, since every month I get more readers than ever before, though probably my lack of posting won’t help exceeding that this month). The reasons for slowing down my blogging routine is three-fold. 1. Time: Time has become a rare commodity in recent months (always busy with real life), though this is not the real issue. The real issue I’m having is … 2. Internet: Did I just say something like “slow down”? Yes, you’re right. Slowing down is another problem. Though that’s not my fault. The only time when the internet works well enough to actually be able to access my blog and post something is in the morning (students are most likely in school at that time). But that’s exactly …

Friday, the 13th

Actually, it took me a while to discover that today is Friday the 13th. The main reason for that probably is that I actually don’t care about this date. It’s just another normal day, like any other. Just another busy, busy Friday. There isn’t even anything special going on for me today. Neither good, nor bad. (Except maybe that I lost in the tennis match I was playing this afternoon. But that doesn’t surprise me, since I was playing with the tennis major guys (note guys, not girls). In fact, I’m the type of person who would be disappointed when winning against people who are at least twice as good as I am, since it could mean only one thing: they probably were just doing the polite thing and letting me win. So, in light of this – losing to me is a good, satisfying thing, not a downer.) And so I find that my thesis on Friday the 13th is right: It’s just a figment of our imagination. It’s just as good or bad …

For the Love of Flowers

I love flowers. And I’m a happy girl, because yesterday I got some. So, of course, I had to take advantage of the situation and get some pictures with the flowers. But that’s not quite as easy a task when you’re the one who also takes the pictures. Usually it’s either me …   … or the flowers … … or neither me nor the flowers … But eventually, I did manage to get a couple of somewhat perfect shots captured (perfect in terms of showing myself and the flowers):   It’s all about trying over and over, and not giving up! And of course, even photos with or without the intended purpose can still turn out for other purposes. Like, you can use them to make a collage of some sort …   Or you can use them to show off the beautiful flower bouquet in various ways on your blog. The bottom line is: no matter what happens, you can always take what was meant for one purpose and use it for another. …