Zhou Dynasty

Happy New Year! I just got back home. Went to Julie's house tonight for a New Years dinner, the food was awesome and it was great to see them again. Afterwards I kinda pooped out on my original plan of going to the asian party. I was tired and just decided its not for me, it's too party hardy. So Nate and I headed back to campus. We ended up spending our countdown at Perry's with a pitcher of Killians (I forgot about my medication) and talking about our future. There were some friendly people too; some Korean guys had us chugg down some champagne and some guy gave us necklaces and things make a lot of noise, it was all fun. A lot of drunks out there, I just wanted to get back home early and beat the drunk traffic. I hope everyone had a fun night and got home safely.

Websites I've been working on a website for my uncle's law firm today and it's been quite a long day. I haven't done in a while and it took me a couple hours just to orient myself again on Photoshop and Fireworks. I couldn't figure out how to do all the things I used to do with Photoshop so I ended up having to use both graphics programs. lol Now the site is finally coming along, meaning I've got some colors and pictures. Yay. I suck at Pump now. Just played a little bit during my break and my legs feel like jelly. Good thing no one is around to watch me.

Idling I've been sitting idle lately...anxiously waiting for my new job to start on the 12th. In the meantime I've been working at Peking Way and on a website on the side. I've been going to bed late and waking up past noon feeling like a bum. I think once you get into this bum mode its hard to get back out. Anyone ever play Restaurant Empire? This game rocks! You build your own restaurant business, everything from designing it, financing, menu selection with recipes and dealing with employees and customers. It is actually very challenging. Play this game first if you ever want to open up your own restaurant.

Flaming Poop Wow...my ass hurts. Last night Danny and I went to this Sezchuan restaurant called Tea House. We had 3 very spicy dishes that made our heads feel like a red hot light bulb. Oh spicy food is so good. Except the morning after... This morning I took a dump and it felt like lava was flowing out of me. Damn it still feels spicy down there.

Update Due to the enormous amount of referred emails I received from Nate's Xanga page concerning the lack of updates here lately, I updated some stuff. So... I've updated my Photos and Links page. Enjoy everyone! Nate, your futile attempts in trying to get me to update has no impact. I didn't receive a single email from any of your internet admirers. =P

To-night Just got back from eating at the Sezchuan restaurant Tea House again. I went with Danny and will, I am so damn full. When we got back my car had a freakin' parking ticket on it! I parked in a contract lot that is usually used by students who drive to school for classes. Tell me why the f*ck do they go around and give people f*ckin' tickets for parking there when school is not in session. God damnit $33 wasted. It's things like this that just pushes me ever closer to the edge. One day I am going to break down and beat the living shit out of a University Parking Officer. Down with the system I say.

Clubb I went to Escape tonight.... I know, it's not like me to go clubbing. But for some reason I felt like going out and doing something for once. It was pretty fun. It's weird because everytime I go to one of these things I always bump into people that I know but rarely see. Tomorrow morning I am supposed to go with Matt to an investment club meeting. God damn I don't know if I can get up in time.

Pic Owned! That suxorz

Get some rest... Tomorrow is my first day at work at Rosemount. I feel a little nervous and don't know what I'll expect. I ironed all my shirts this evening to prepare for the week. I think I need a couple more pair of slacks and some black socks (Target baby). For those of you who don't know what I'll be doing there, I don't really know either. All I know is that I am in Global Pressure Marketing. I will be working for Mechanical, Chemical and other Electrical engineers. Says here that this job "will involve global interaction with both field sales and customers and would enhance skills in the areas of product marketing, management, communication, and bussines." I really that sentence because there are a lot of words that I like in there such as : interaction, sales, customers, marketing, management, communication and especially business. I can't wait to get involved with this company, time to get some sleep so I can get up at 6.

The Billy's Diet I woke up for some reason, I think it was ice cream. I was dreaming about some vanilla ice cream and how good it would be to eat it. Then I woke up and my mouth was really dry. Well I just had a scoop of vanilla ice cream and I think that should help me fall back asleep.

My Hometown Ahhh...I miss Xiamen so much. I wish I could go there right now. That's it, I'm gonna make it a goal to live and work there in the future. This is what one author and teach had to say about Xiamen: Bill Brown, in Amoy Magic, says: "What Chinese city has the best weather, the cleanest air, beautiful beaches and gardens, the planet's best seafood, a unique marriage of traditional Chinese, European colonial and modern architecture, the third fastest growing economy (thanks to one of the world's best natural deep-water harbours�which is also home to rare white dolphins), the nation's most advanced international airport, the only key university in a special economic zone ..." The answer is of course Xiamen. Why am I still awake? This sucks.

First day at Rosemount My first day at Rosemount was great! I love my job ... but I have to get up so early in the morning. I didn't fall asleep till around 5AM last night and my alarm didn't wake me up at 6:30. Good thing Will came into my room to check on me at 7, otherwise I would've been late for my first day at work. I really like the professionalism and the atmosphere of this company. I'm glad to be working in Marketing because everyone is very nice and personalable. My supervisor is a great guy, he gave me a personal laptop to use, treated me out to lunch and even encouraged me to steal a monitor and keyboard from another cubicle. My goal during these three months is to try and complete as many projects as I can, the more I complete, the more experience I have. Time to get ready for bed, I am dead tired.

Tired Wow I had a long and productive day at work today. It all started out with a 45 minute drive because of some accident on the road involving 3 cars and a semi. I got a lot of things done because I want to be prepared for tomorrow's meeting. My first project in Marketing is to come up with a new web page layout and advertisement poster for a new product line. I get to spend all my time on how to communicate with the customer in a creative way, its actually a lot of thinking and brainstorming. When I came home today, there was another backup and took me a little over an hour to get back. This time there were 2 cars and a semi. It looked like the semi drove over half of one of the cars because the back of that car was completely crushed. Anyways, driving to work sucks nuts and I am going to start car pooling with a co-worker tomorrow.

Yay! Wow I'm happy today, I got home before 6! I went to work early this morning at around 7 so I can leave work early. Leaving work an hour early makes a huge difference with the traffic! I must've saved myself 45 minutes on the road today. Work was pretty rough today. I hauled ass and made some design and layout proposals only to be sent back for revision, major revisions. The lesson I learned today is that in Marketing, the final product is never finished and you always have to revise revise revise. I also learned that if you want the opportunity to do a lot of traveling at your job, you should work in Marketing for a big company that has a global presence. All of the people in my group get to travel all over the world, while I sit in my half-sized cube and work on their projects. One of my supervisors is going to Beijing next week, not fair.

Week-end I had a great weekend. I can't remember the last time my weekend was that worth-while. I actually did things. The fun started after work on Friday. Friday Matt, Will and I went to happy hour at The Refuge, $2 anything. We had a couple of drinks there then headed to McCormick & Schmick's for their happy hour, $1.95 seafood menu, damn good seafood! Then we headed back to The Refuge and met up with a bunch of friends. It was a lot of fun, new friends and old friends, we all had a good time. It was a lot of fun dancing and drinking. Saturday Saturday morning Matt woke me up at 8 in the morning, gawd I wanted to kick his ass. Wake up that early for what? To go to the tanning salon before 9 cuz it only costs $4. No, of course I didn't go, that is insane. But I went to the investment club meeting with him. Later I went to Mall of America and bought some clothes at Express for Men, they had a super sale, it was great! Saturday night Me, Will and Danny went to David's restaurant in River Falls to celebrate Chinese New Year with his family and co-workers. The food was awesome! And we drank with their co-workers. Will got really drunk, I've never seen him drunk before but he was. Danny and I just learned that he is very annoying while drunk, just doesn't shut up! Danny puked, again! After 3 beers, Danny couldn't take it anymore. He rushed into the bathroom but couldn't make it in time. All I saw was a stream of stuff go flying out his mouth and then as he closed the door, that stuff leaked out from under the door. It was pretty nasty lol. Sunday I met up with Jia and went to the CAAM Dance Performance. There were a lot of people there and I was enjoying the show... But in the end I heard the Dragon Dance song come up and they did the Dragon Dance, without me! It was interesting to see someone else do the dance because I never knew what it really looked like. I was so dissapointed, it sucked. They made it look like a retarded dragon with multiple humps squirming around. It was just low in energy and wasn't timed correctly, but of course only I would notice. It makes me want to assemble my own dragon dance team full of young guys and totally run that stage. But then again, I'm old and I am sitting here in my cubicle just daydreaming. After the performance we all went to Lucky Dragon for their reception, the food was pretty good, if you were lucky enough to get some! CAAM needs to start feeding their people during the day because the action at the buffet reminded me of a pack of hyeenas. Everyone just attacked that buffet. I was in line and the food dissapeared after a blink of an eye. Of course I didn't care because Alan and I got some Tsingdao beer at the restaurant. After dinner some of us went to Perry's and we had a couple pitchers of Kilian's. Damn that's good beer. What a way to make use of a weekend. I have come to appreciate weekends now that I work 40 hours a week.

Battling Cold So on Monday I started feeling a little sick at work, but when I got home, I felt ok again. And then Tuesday I got sick again. Tuesday night I felt like crap, my whole body was hurting and my right eye was hurting too. I've been taking dayquil and that works but last night my mom gave me some Chinese medicine that is supposed to be real good. Well I took one this morning before work. Now I just feel like shit. I knew I shouldn't have trusted that pill, I can't even read the description cuz its in Chinese. I feel worse now than this morning when I woke up.

Happy Chinese New Year! Gong xi fa cai! I am celebrating Chinese New Year this weekend with my family. My dad came back from Xiamen 3 days ago and my grandma came back with him. Last night we went to Edina to celebrate the new years with a bunch of distant relatives, mostly my dad's cousins and their families. It is always a big event because there are so many people, but I don't know everyone. One weird thing I noted was that all of my dad's cousins married a white person, except for one of them. I think it is because they grew up in America and were not exposed to enough Chinese culture because they were picked on a lot at school. There was also a really cute girl from China, she is adopted and she's only 4. Her mother went to China and adopted her, then moved to her hometown in the country side for a year and taught English. Now the little girl goes to a Chinese school in Roseville 3 days out of the week where they only speak Chinese. Her mother is also planning to take her back every 2 years. I think that's great, I only wish more adoptees from China had this kind of opportunity to be in touch with their roots. I wish I was in China right now, it seems like they are just having a great time, everyone is in the spirit. Being in America is hard but I'm lucky to have family here.

Chinese I spent my entire weekend with Mom, Dad and Grandma. I was completely emersed in Chinese. I spoke and heard Chinese 99% of the time this weekend, even the tv and movie we saw over the weekend was all in Chinese. I took my grandma to Yummy's for dim sum today and had a good talk about some of the family history. She told me that her father was the first person in China to grow strawberries. He came to America before WW2 to study agriculture. So he then brougt back the knowledge of some kind of rubber substance I think and also strawberries! She also told me how her father was persecuted and beaten during the Communist Revolution. All that talk about China in Chinese made me forget where I was. I thought I was in China, especially since I was eating dim sum and it was pretty good. Tomorrow I will go to work and return to speaking a lot of English, blah. The Magic of Google With the help of Google I have gotten to meet some interesting people over the internet. I have met a very special friend in Malaysia and a wonderful family in Xiamen, and not to mention the scores of students doing research on the Zhou Dynasty. Google continues to advance and I believe it will be second nature to everyone in a few years, just like the remote control. Speaking of that, rumor has it that Google is going to be put up as an IPO soon.

Update Okay I updated the links section. Here are some sites that you should check out. Amoy Magic! - why the hell do I like my hometown so much? Abroad China - find a teaching job in China, it's easy as YI ER SAN! Minneapolis Happy Hour - the best part about being 21+.

Daily My daily habits have changed quite a bit now that I've started my job. Everynight I have to shower and get to bed around 10. And then I wake up at 6 in the morning (yes, 6AM) and run for half an hour. What is wrong with me. I fight the traffic every morning to Chanhassen sometimes driving more than an hour. Then I get to work and well, work is work. It's not too demanding but yet it keeps me busy. After work I gotta fight traffic again to get back to campus, usually takes 45 mins depending when I leave. What is wrong with me. By the time I get back I feel so tired that I don't even want to do anything else, I can't even stand looking at my computer anymore. Last night I was so bored I dragged David to Target with me. Target, people! I don't shop there but now it is fun to shop there. What is wrong with me. -_-

Summer plans I found out today that my supervisor at Cargill wants me to start my internship on June 1 at the latest. That is madness! That leaves me less than a month in China since my class for this semester ends on May 6. I want to stay in Xiamen for a month, do everything I would do as if I was actually living there. It would be nice to wake up early every morning and go for a jog, then head to the local street market to get some fresh groceries and seafood. Then I could come back to my apt and cook something new everyday. In the afternoon I want to go shopping or explore Gulangyu island or explore Xiamen. Then in the evening I will just eat dinner with family and spend the night hearing the sound of mahjong tiles crashing into each other as relatives complain about their luck. Sigh...dont know if that's going to happen.

Funny

Cold It is cold in Minnesota. Low of -16F (-26C) and a high of -5F (-20C). This morning when I was going to work the wind chill was at -33F (-36C) !!!! My car growled at me. I turned my key to start the ignition and kept it turned because my car tried to die on me again. I don't know how much longer the 89 Audi is going to hold up in this weather.

Baby Video This is my cousin Simon's new baby. ^_^

Wicking shirt So I bought this Reebok sports shirt at Marshalls like two months ago for $5. It is supposed to wick away your sweat and keep you cool. I got it because I plan on wearing it this summer when I start riding my motorcycle again. Well I wore that shirt inside my normal long sleeve today. Boy does that thing make you feel cool! I have a jacket on and when I move around, I can just feel all the coolness. I didn't expect it to have that kind of effect on my body. It also doesn't help since it was -24F outside this morning.

Cartoon Look what I made! I tired this at 7AM this morning. David rubbed the lotion all over his face and arms and said he liked my "juice". x_x

Long day Ack my eyes are so tired.