The other day...oh yeah, and today too

So the other day (see, I'm not above re-using the title in my writing!), my friends invited me to go sing karaoke with them. While it might have been a good thing to say "yes" and get out of the room for a little bit, I had a feeling that I was going to do something that night that would be good for Age of Thieves. I didn't know whether it was a greater focus on writing itself or doing something else, but I was in the "right mood".

Well, I didn't get any writing done...but I did get something equally important done.

I drew a map.

I've been meaning to do that for a LONG time, but I've just never sat down and done it. I'm a little afraid of drawing because I know I'm not a good artist. Even if I worked at it, I wouldn't be very good. But this is something that I had to do. Nobody else could draw the world of Age of Thieves for me; otherwise, I would lose all connection to it. So I sat down, drew out a rough draft on one piece of paper, then sat down with two other pieces of paper, carefully lined them up (yeah, I needed that much room for details and such), and began drawing. I had in my mind some ideas of where I wanted things to be. I also had planned out some natural geography, including where some plate tectonics where (I got that into detail. Go me!), what the shape of the continents were supposed to be, and what would be important to the story. When I finished my first draft, I was pretty pleased...but I knew it wasn't done yet. So another hour and a half later of erasing coastal lines, making things more jagged, adding in bays and whatnot, I finally had my final product. I wish I could show it to you, but I wouldn't trust my camera to capture it accurately, and I don't have a scanner. Needless to say, I am very proud of myself for creating what I did, even if there is no color nor any topography on it. I also apparently can't draw islands, so I left them out entirely.... Point is, I expanded my boundaries, and now, if I want someone else to do some drawings for me, I can hand them these pieces of paper, point, and say, "It should look like THIS." How cool is that?

Speaking of this, I'm looking for someone to be my "to-go" person as far as drawing is concerned. I will use the term "hiring" because it WILL involve some pay. My idea is this: I will pay on commission for specific drawings (a fair price decided beforehand, then re-evaluated after the final product, just so I'm not getting stiffed either), and the artist will retain partial rights to any products, so if Age of Thieves were to become published and much money were to be had, the artist would not be left out in the cold in any of that.

I'm serious when I'm saying this. I want Age of Thieves to do well, and I think part of that is having good art to go with it. I'm looking for a partner to help with a great lot of this since this isn't my forte. Heck, if we wanted to, we could make a graphic novel of it! I'd LOVE to do that. So I need someone equally serious and equally dedicated. I haven't been in recent years, but I swear that I will be soon, with or without an artist.

So if you are interested or know someone who might be, please have them get in touch with me. Post a comment or send a message to this blog relaying contact info (my stuff is on my info page), and we'll talk. We'll also probably talk more upon my return from China.

SPEAKING OF CHINA!

I went to Tiger Hill today. It is a local Suzhou tourist attraction, and a fun one at that. There's a pagoda that leans like the Leaning Tower of Pisa but is both larger and older, and a few other sites with fun stories behind them. Basically, though, it was just a very scenic spot. I'll post pictures soon, I promise. Only reason I don't do it now is because IT'S VERY COLD HERE and my fingers have almost no heat left after typing all that I just did.

Can't buy Xi'an ticket until tomorrow...which I kinda don't like, but OH WELL. At least I'm going. Then I'll have even MORE pictures.

Less than two weeks, people! I'm almost home.

Zaijian!

Du Kai

Other travel places

As my time in China comes to a close, I've begun to think if I want to travel elsewhere.

The answer?

Not for a while.

But yes.

I haven't realized it, but my mind has been building up a series of places that I want to go to before my untimely demise. A list of these places includes (but is not limited to:

Machu Picchu.
Sydney, Australia (mainly to see the Opera House).
Easter Island.
An Aztec pyramid.
Ireland.
Japan (mainly Tokyo, but also other places).
Possibly Egypt...I am undecided, truth be told.
Greece.
Italy (Rome and Venice, specifically).

I don't know if I'll ever be able to go to all of them, but hey, I came to China, didn't I? I think Machu Picchu will be next one.... How about a world tour, huh?!

I've been blogging nearly every day for a while, haven't I? Suppose that's a good thing, overall.

Oh, by the way, I've decided that I'm going to Xi'an, specifically to see the terracotta army. That should be great fun! I'm also planning on stopping at a few pagodas as well...don't know which ones, though.

Alright, I'm done. Man, I made a lot of double spacing between thoughts in this particular blog....

Zaijian!
Du Kai

Would it be weird?

If I were to buy glasses, not for reading purposes, but for style? Would that be weird?

I've had so many people tell me I look better with glasses, and truth be told, I think so as well. But I don't know, does that come off as extremely hipster? If I were to get some fake ones, they probably wouldn't be the big black bulky frames that are "in style"; I'd probably get some sleeker looking ones.

Weird thoughts...I have them.

Random note for the day

Something I meant to blog about after it happened but just never got around to it.

One of my teachers, while explaining a phrase in Chinese, proceeded to say one of the funniest things I've heard while here.

"Bling bling de".

That's right, she used "bling bling". The "de" just made it an adjective. So basically, she said that the object was bling-blinging.

That made me so incredibly happy, you have no idea. :)

By the way, again, if you'd like anything from China, please let me know. And I mean "anything". I may not get gifts for everyone because, well, I don't know WHAT to get. I have a bunch of postcards that you are free to look at, and the pictures are up for grabs. But other than immediate family members and close friends, I probably won't get something for everyone. I feel like I want to, but it's just not in the cards.

Yo ho, Yo ho

A pirate's life for me...which has nothing to do with the following blog post. I just had it going through my head. :)

So here's the latest from Suzhou: I thought our finals were going to be in two weeks. I thought I would have them right before I came back home. I thought I was going to have just a couple more weekends to travel haphazardly to some places.

Apparently, I thought wrong.

Our finals are NEXT week (AHHHHH!), which means I have a week to study, a week of finals, then almost an entire week to do...whatever I want to do.

EXCITING!

...can I come home early?

Nah, I think I'll take advantage of the time and try and travel. Anyone have any suggestions? I've gone to Beijing and Shanghai. I'm thinking maybe Nanjing or Guangzhou (though Guangzhou might be a little sketchy...). Can't do Hong Kong; I'd have to do a visa renew if I went that route. Maybe Xi'an if I can figure out the time. It'd be cool to see the terracotta soldiers.

And if I can't figure out anything, I might just return home a little early. Who knows!? :)

Alright, that's all from me now. I've gotta go study...or at least try.

(This is normally where I'd say "good bye" and my name in Chinese...but since the computer failure, my computer doesn't seem to want to let me do that. How odd. Time for Pinyin!)

Zaijian!
Du Kai

Dear sweet life, how I loathe thee sometimes

So I've been internet silent for the past couple of days. Why? Not on my own volition, I can tell you that much. No, my computer finally caught a virus, and woo doggy, when it catches a virus, it CATCHES a virus. I've been unable to do ANYTHING with my computer for the last 3 days. After looking at it myself and with friends for the last couple of days, I finally decided to go to a computer place here and get everything fixed. Well, I did that...but part of getting rid of the virus I had meant that nearly everything I had was wiped from my computer. The people gave me a ghost file so I could get what I wanted from it, but most of it right now is unusable. Meaning I have to download it again...so I will either have to wait until I'm back in the States or download them at 3 in the morning here. Because the internet here is so slow. So slow...snail slow.

Never before have I hated the Chinese internet so very much.

Regardless! I have Skype back, I can access the internet once more, and I even got the backlight on my computer replaced for far less than it would have cost in the States. Here's me looking on the bright side of life.

Back from Beijing

As the title says, I'm back from the northern end of China. I'm pretty tired, but I'll try to give as best a summary of the experience as possible. Essentially, we left Thursday night on the overnight train to Beijing. What was rather scary for me was the bed that was supposedly very uncomfortable was a heck of a lot better than my regular bed here in China. Yeah...go figure. Didn't get to sleep much, though, because of just general travel anxiety and so on. We arrived Friday morning, ate some food, went to our hotel, got checked in, then immediately went out on the town. Our first stops were the Forbidden City and Tian'anmen Square. Although we didn't spend nearly as long there as I personally would have liked, I still got a good feel for it all and enjoyed it pretty well. Our next stop was the Olympic stadium, aka the Bird's Nest. Even though I have no interest in the Olympic stuff at all, that was also very interesting. Only problem with that was we had to wait for one of our group member's friends there for a LONG time, and it was getting cold! I thought my feet were going to freeze off. Afterward, we went out for Peking duck, the rest of the group went out drinking, and I proceeded to fall asleep back at the hotel. The next day, I had originally planned on visiting the Great Wall, but no plans were set, so that was delayed for the day. Instead, we spent most of the day on our feet, exploring Beijing, eventually ending up at a Beijing alleyway (otherwise known as a "hutong" 胡同) called Liulicheng where we bought many items (I'm not telling you what I bought because some of it may be gifts for people) and explored around a bit more. After eating dinner, the rest of the group wanted to go out drinking again, so I went along. It turned out to be a pretty big bust, though; nobody was satisfied with anyplace we went to, and by the time we were figuring out that we needed to go to a completely different area, those of us going to the Great Wall the next day needed to be back at the hotel sleeping. So we just went back and slept.

Now, my Great Wall experience: PHENOMENAL. The Great Wall is one of the places that I've wanted to go to all my stinkin' life (another being the Sydney Opera house, for some odd reason), and I was not disappointed. It was cold, the hike was long, and even for not being tourist season, it was crowded...but it was so worth it. I can't even describe how I felt. I really could have spent all day there, but alas, we needed to head back and catch our train. Our train ride back was honestly too warm, and we had a few hardcore snorers, so when we arrived in Suzhou at 7:45 this morning, it was pretty much clear to all of us that class was not an option. Since then, I've just been uploading photos for you fine folks to enjoy:







And now I'm off to get some food!

再见！
杜楷