So I'm going to Shanghai for the next week or so. A little less than that, but yeah, until next Sunday at the latest, I'll be offline (subtract 15 hours for you Pacific Time Zone States people, so that means Saturday actually), so be sure to send me lots and lots of messages for when I come back to read.
Also, can someone tell me when Daylight Savings Time happens? I'm really not sure, but I wanna know so I can adjust accordingly here for phone calls, etc.
Talk to you all soon!
再见
杜楷
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Not sure who else cares, but...
AHHHH!! I just found out that Chrono Trigger DS is coming out November 25th in the States! This is a re-release of one of my favorite games ever! I'm so freaking excited right now! I thought it was going to be late January or so when it came out. Glee!
Plus, there might be an announcement of a sequel to Skies of Arcadia, another one of my favorite games (and one of most under-appreciated RPGs of all time).
Add on that Video Games Live! in January...and this is a good year for video games for me. I am happy. :)
Plus, there might be an announcement of a sequel to Skies of Arcadia, another one of my favorite games (and one of most under-appreciated RPGs of all time).
Add on that Video Games Live! in January...and this is a good year for video games for me. I am happy. :)
Groups
One thing that I've realized on this trip: I don't like groups. I generally was aware of this fact about myself previous to this trip, but it really hit home during these first couple of weeks. And let me be clear on one thing; I'm not talking about a small group ("small" being defined as two or three people). I'm talking when you have over five people that you have to worry about what they want, when they want it, and what all they are doing. Because I just don't function like that. I like to make decisions NOW, do things quickly, and not waste anytime. Of course, I'm such a nice guy, I try and go along with the group...but really, how long does it take for us to decide where to eat? And there have been a couple of scary moments too: one time in a grocery store, my shopping cart was the catch-all shopping cart for a few people, which wouldn't have been a problem, except I was starting to run low on energy and I felt like I was going to faint unless I got something, ANYTHING to eat, but I couldn't leave because I couldn't find the other people who had their stuff in my cart. A few of my friends can tell you, I was getting mad. So yeah, I like doing things with a few people or by myself. I think it works best in the end.
Enough of the complaining! Cool thing for next week: going to Shanghai! It's kind of a week long national holiday, and today, I bought tickets for myself, Charlie, and Tyler to head off to Shanghai Monday morning. We'll need to either make hotel reservations in advance or at least look up what's there prior to going, but we're going to spend a couple of days in the area, shopping, doing the tourist thing, and possibly going outside of the city as well. We don't know right now, and you know what? That is a-okay with me. It'll be an adventure! (But no, don't worry; I'll find out where to stay before leaving. I'm not that idiotic...)
Um, let's see...other stuff. Classes are going well, even if I don't necessarily want to be going to them (I'm very sleepy, and getting up at 7 every day for classes is starting to wear thin). I'm getting more and less adventurous with my Chinese, depending on the situation. Hardest part is understanding what other people are saying fast enough to come up with a proper response. I finished Angel (Smile Time is still one of my favorite episodes...if you don't know the show, you should watch it), and I'm missing my other DVDs. One of the things to look forward to when I come back, I suppose. Oh yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to coming back. I haven't fallen "in love" with China yet, regardless of what some people told me. I'm just too invested back in the States, I suppose. I had really bad heartburn for a long time, didn't put it on this blog because I didn't want people to worry, and I'm feeling better now! So see, I can take care of myself. :) And...I think that's it. Any questions, comments, and so on will be forwarded to my secretary, thank you, have a good night!...or day, or whatever the heck it is where you guys are. I'm off!
再见！
杜楷
Enough of the complaining! Cool thing for next week: going to Shanghai! It's kind of a week long national holiday, and today, I bought tickets for myself, Charlie, and Tyler to head off to Shanghai Monday morning. We'll need to either make hotel reservations in advance or at least look up what's there prior to going, but we're going to spend a couple of days in the area, shopping, doing the tourist thing, and possibly going outside of the city as well. We don't know right now, and you know what? That is a-okay with me. It'll be an adventure! (But no, don't worry; I'll find out where to stay before leaving. I'm not that idiotic...)
Um, let's see...other stuff. Classes are going well, even if I don't necessarily want to be going to them (I'm very sleepy, and getting up at 7 every day for classes is starting to wear thin). I'm getting more and less adventurous with my Chinese, depending on the situation. Hardest part is understanding what other people are saying fast enough to come up with a proper response. I finished Angel (Smile Time is still one of my favorite episodes...if you don't know the show, you should watch it), and I'm missing my other DVDs. One of the things to look forward to when I come back, I suppose. Oh yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to coming back. I haven't fallen "in love" with China yet, regardless of what some people told me. I'm just too invested back in the States, I suppose. I had really bad heartburn for a long time, didn't put it on this blog because I didn't want people to worry, and I'm feeling better now! So see, I can take care of myself. :) And...I think that's it. Any questions, comments, and so on will be forwarded to my secretary, thank you, have a good night!...or day, or whatever the heck it is where you guys are. I'm off!
再见！
杜楷
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Walk-about
It was strange. Today, I just got the urge to go walk around the area without anyone else. I haven't gone walking without a purpose for a long time. Even "hanging out" serves its own purpose. Today, though, I wanted to walk. Granted, I could have thought it out before going out with long jeans in hot, humid weather, but all in all, I really did enjoy just walking around. Maybe I need to do that more often. Of course, if I do it more often, then it becomes "with a purpose" again...drat. And if you are expecting some large report about something AMAZING I saw, you'll be waiting awhile. Nothing special about it except it made me feel good. Plus, it was nice to be alone in China. Every other time I've gone out, I've been with a group. This was my first time I ventured out without a chaperone, and I think it was worth it.
Until next time!
再见！
杜楷
Until next time!
再见！
杜楷
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Wow...today was full of stuff
I'm still trying to take it all in. What it started as was some of my friends from my classes asked me if I wanted to join them in a tour around parts of Suzhou with some Chinese students learning to speak English, and rather than the usual "no" that I might give after a long week of studying, I said yes. I'm in China, right? Have to try new stuff. So this morning, instead of sleeping in, I got up, got showered, and started the day by going to a beautiful (and by "beautiful", I mean gorgeous) garden. It was so pretty, and I forgot my bleedin' camera! Luckily, one of my friends said they didn't like to take photos so they let me borrow the camera...mwahahaha...
After that, we went to another portion of Suzhou where we first ate some food (which managed to squirt hot liquid at me not once, but twice! First time was my fault, second time was the fault of the person next to me...it was really funny. =] ), then went on a bit of a walk-around through some smaller shops and whatnot. It wasn't like the historic town we went to previously, but that was kind of nice.
Around 4, we returned to Suzhou University (I refuse to write "Soochow"...dangit, I just did!) where we got cooled off for a bit...before going out to go dancing! Unfortunately, the dancing was a bit of a bust: they merely presented the type of dancing we could do IF we signed up for the class. I still plan on going tomorrow, though; it's the first day of Salsa, and if I don't like it, it won't cost me a thing. I like things that don't cost me anything. =]
Finally, I helped one of the students studying English understand some of the finer points of Dead Poet's Society. Boy, that's hard to do in English, much less in Chinese...fortunately, I had one of my class friends there to bounce words off of and translate with. It all worked out, and it was good to do.
Now, I'm listening to Owen Pallet, enjoying his wonderful string compositions, and starting to relax before tomorrow. "What's tomorrow?" you might ask. Well, I'll have the answer for you after it all happens. Yes, I know: cliffhanger. But hey, if I ever want to be a successful screenwriter/novelist, I have to practice.
再见！
杜楷
After that, we went to another portion of Suzhou where we first ate some food (which managed to squirt hot liquid at me not once, but twice! First time was my fault, second time was the fault of the person next to me...it was really funny. =] ), then went on a bit of a walk-around through some smaller shops and whatnot. It wasn't like the historic town we went to previously, but that was kind of nice.
Around 4, we returned to Suzhou University (I refuse to write "Soochow"...dangit, I just did!) where we got cooled off for a bit...before going out to go dancing! Unfortunately, the dancing was a bit of a bust: they merely presented the type of dancing we could do IF we signed up for the class. I still plan on going tomorrow, though; it's the first day of Salsa, and if I don't like it, it won't cost me a thing. I like things that don't cost me anything. =]
Finally, I helped one of the students studying English understand some of the finer points of Dead Poet's Society. Boy, that's hard to do in English, much less in Chinese...fortunately, I had one of my class friends there to bounce words off of and translate with. It all worked out, and it was good to do.
Now, I'm listening to Owen Pallet, enjoying his wonderful string compositions, and starting to relax before tomorrow. "What's tomorrow?" you might ask. Well, I'll have the answer for you after it all happens. Yes, I know: cliffhanger. But hey, if I ever want to be a successful screenwriter/novelist, I have to practice.
再见！
杜楷
Friday, September 19, 2008
Pictures!!
Okay, despite my griping in the last blog, I managed to set up an account to put all of my pictures up on so you fine people can view them at your leisure. Hopefully, this slide show thing works...
And if not, click HERE.
It is all very interesting. Well, not really...but there should be more later.
再见！
And if not, click HERE.
It is all very interesting. Well, not really...but there should be more later.
再见！
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Good days
The title is an obvious contrast with the last blog post. Why? Well, because I feel better! I actually UNDERSTOOD my teachers today! I mean, I've always understood bits and pieces, but today I understood most everything. How awesome is that?! It either means they've finally learned to dumb it down a bit (yeah right!), or I'm finally starting to learn the listening portion of the language better. This is my goal! YES! Yeeeeessss....and that is only funny to me because I read Dr. McNinja way too much.
In other news, I'm going salsa dancing on Saturday with some friends. I haven't done salsa in a couple of years, so that should be interesting. Hopefully swing doesn't completely throw me off. =)
And another side note: to all the people who have been commenting on this blog on Blogger: I did not realize that you were doing so! Hello IMAX friends, Doki, and so on! Um, sorry I didn't respond earlier to your questions. I feel so sheepish now. I don't know that I should go back and answer them now since the moment has sorta passed. But I will answer my *cough* superior's *end cough* question pertaining to photos. The answer is: China's internet STINKS. I don't trust it to upload photos, to be honest. You can be sure that I will have plenty when I come back, and that they were then be posted. If I can find someplace around here with decent enough internet, I'll do a "best of" photo album and put a few up there. That's about the best I can do.
Man...I'm hungry. I need food. Talk to you all later! And, yes, NOW I'll be checking the comment sections. Good to know that people are reading this (besides my wonderful family, of course; they'd read this even if I had nothing to say...oh wait, that's most of the time. =] )
再见！
杜楷
In other news, I'm going salsa dancing on Saturday with some friends. I haven't done salsa in a couple of years, so that should be interesting. Hopefully swing doesn't completely throw me off. =)
And another side note: to all the people who have been commenting on this blog on Blogger: I did not realize that you were doing so! Hello IMAX friends, Doki, and so on! Um, sorry I didn't respond earlier to your questions. I feel so sheepish now. I don't know that I should go back and answer them now since the moment has sorta passed. But I will answer my *cough* superior's *end cough* question pertaining to photos. The answer is: China's internet STINKS. I don't trust it to upload photos, to be honest. You can be sure that I will have plenty when I come back, and that they were then be posted. If I can find someplace around here with decent enough internet, I'll do a "best of" photo album and put a few up there. That's about the best I can do.
Man...I'm hungry. I need food. Talk to you all later! And, yes, NOW I'll be checking the comment sections. Good to know that people are reading this (besides my wonderful family, of course; they'd read this even if I had nothing to say...oh wait, that's most of the time. =] )
再见！
杜楷
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