where it all began

"I REALLY MISSED YOU GUYS"
- Anthony

Beijing: A Second Opinion

A constant grayish-white cloudy layer covers the entire city so that you always feel as if your standing in the middle of a very large movie set. This only adds to my feeling of almost complete disconnectedness, as I haven't been back to Beijing in 14 years and I have a sadly diminished command of Chinese.

In my forced role of observer, I see that China has changed: it seems desperate to be America, and it's slowly succeeding. Every store ad features a white person as a model and all the commercials feature white people as scientists and doctors telling you to buy things. The Chinese restaurants all carry American dishes, and coffee shops appear more frequently than they should. The Chinese youth is sluttier, rowdier, and fatter.

I met up with Francis and went to his girlfriend's send-off dinner party. We all gathered at her apartment, 8 Americans and 2 Europeans, drank our Chinese-brand liquor, smoked our Chinese-brand cigarettes and ate our Chinese take-out and Pringles. But we could have been anywhere.

I've also done the culture thing (The Great Wall, authentic food, traditional festivals) which hasn't seemed to have changed. It's as if there are two parts to Beijing, like trying to "discover who you are" at college while mimicking your peers, but then going home and being the respectful child your parents remember.

well, if you MUST....

We came across this sign during our last weekend in Botswana. We were at once repulsed and intrigued by it; we hated that it existed, but at the same time, we knew its existence was appropriate and, in this context, even perfect. It was as if we suddenly understood the two months of interactions we had engaged in and consciously avoided, as if someone had simply come up to us and effortlessly explained all the frustrations we had spent so many of our nights trying to express.

Here, smacked onto an official piece of plastic, is (edit: what I believe to be) the attitude of Botswana. It acknowledges a less than ideal state without necessarily seeking to improve it. It voices a desire to reach higher but discards the element of personal responsibility, instead suggesting that “Well, I can’t really do that much about it, so maybe someone else will.” There is no shame, it seems, in comfortably lounging around all day, dreaming of the better life but openly relying on--and even begging for--some more ambitious character to create it for you.


During the past few weeks I've been home, despite all the voices telling me I am the only one who can do anything for myself and for my future, I think I've sadly resorted to adopting this sign's attitude.

Why Hello There

This summer has gone by too quickly. I still have till September to enjoy what's left of that which could very well be the last summer vacation of my life. I bought weekend ferry tickets for Uruguay, to tour the cities of Colonia and Montevideo, with a fellow intern. It should be ...

Well, here is where I'd like to explain to you my newfound discovery about traveling.

I thought I loved it. But I don't.
It's exhausting and many times stressful.
It's really not that fun...I mean, all I really enjoy are the hotels and the meals...not the street tours, the architecture, the parks, etc. I only enjoy those things which I could enjoy with equal intensity back at home. Those things which are not unique to foreign locations.
And all I can do is compare things to home...and in developing countries, most of these things don't compare so well.

Other interesting things...
>had a meeting with the head economist at the British embassy in Buenos Aires. he was really cute and witty. i mean, i think he was 40 years old, but i couldnt stop eye-fucking him the entire time. it was fun
>went to a club, got plastered within 2 hours, pretty much got kicked out...was incredibly sick and vomiting...was dropped off at a hostel, where I woke up the next morning...didn't know how the hell I got there
>the bunk above me was rhythmically creaking at 10am that morning. nobody else was in the hostel room. i cleared my throat to let the intrepid masturbator know that he had conscious company. he then looks down and asks me if i'd like to lend a hand.
>met a bunch of korean-argentines in the past few weeks. it's really weird not being able to speak korean or english with some of them cause all they know is spanish.

Hmmmm....

This is quickly becoming my own personal blog. Oh well, China tomorrow morning!

Presentation: Success

So the intern team project I've been working on into 11pm for the past week is finally over. We presented in front of like 150 people, including vps from my team and the co-presidents of the entire company! There were three groups overall, and while the others were good (one was cute, the other nerdy) ours was the most professional (yeah penn).

It feels awesome to finally be done and to have done the best (or so I've heard), especially in front of the people I've been working with all summer. I have three days left and have been invited to more lunches and meetings than the entire two months. Also, I'm slightly tipsy after celebrating with fellow interns and just overall bonding, so right now I'm just really happy happy.

:) :) :)

(i think) I HAVE CABIN FEVER

I have my bags packed. I want to drive to Philadelphia tomorrow morning. Rash, rash, rash! I already told my mom I want to stay with a friend for a few days at Michigan State, so I'd only be lying about the location...

I can't focus on/do anything at home except for wish I could be somewhere else.

I'M TIRED OF NETWORKING.

Job crisis, No. 100000000000000

So I've basically deduced 3 routes:

Entertainment industry assistant position - I'd be an assistant (which would suck), but to some awesome entertainment executive in the department I want, for like 2 years, learn from exposure to the department, get promoted to a job in the department, and then work hard to try and eventually climb the corporate ladder.

Entry level advertising agency or entertainment industry position - I'd get to actually do real work (although still entry level), but for almost no pay, and work hard to advance quickly and bide my time until an opening appears in the department I want to work in in a company I want to work for. Repeat.

Corporate marketing - I go corporate (ex. American Express) and be less passionate about my work (credit cards!) but much more comfortable (higher pay, benefits!). Climb the ladder and HOPE for a lateral move into the entertainment industry (which would only happen at the top top level) or I'll find out I'm too bored and want to go back into the entertainment industry and have to start from the bottom, which I could have done from the beginning.

WHAT A DILEMMA.


On a happier note, around this time next week I'll be off to China!


PS. Val and Francis - I'm going to a midnight screening of The Room tomorrow night for some drunk, screaming, spoon-flinging fun. DO YOU UNDERSTAND LYYYYYFFFFEEEEE? Which reminds me, check this out if you're brave.

Recovery and Revelation

I got ill for the second time this month. I think it was the flu both times. But now I'm better. I wasn't able to go into work due to my condition, so I'd been in bed for most of the week, falling into my disgusting routine of watching endless amounts of television. I'm all caught up on a couple Argentine soap operas, both of which are horrible...I think the Asians have mastered the art form at a level unmatched by the rest of the world.

Anyway, yesterday, I was feeling well enough and craving American food. (As I wrote before, Argentine cuisine is painfully limited to an either bland or unpalatably salty derivative of Italian cuisine.) I ventured into a downtown McDonald's establishment and ordered a "Big McTasty, y por favor agranda el combo". I sat in the middle of the dining room on the second floor. Took off my jacket, then my vest, then my sweater. Put them on the chair beside me. Opened up my McTasty oh so delicately and commenced. I thought I might weep. It was so fucking good.

Later that evening I went to a bar with a friend where I met his other friends, one of whom is gay. He wasn't cute, unfortunately, but we immediately got along quite well. I was invited to his house, since everyone wanted to go out and I wasn't feeling well enough for a crazy night of dancing/drinking.

La Plata is the administrative capital of Buenos Aires Province. It is a city that was planned before being built and there are no sky scrapers. The city, which is 500 blocks by 500 blocks (roughly), is in a perfect grid system with a plaza equally spaced out every 10 blocks or so. The weird thing is, there are no clearly marked retail zones and residential zones except along the avenues. There are no neighborhood covenants which dictate architectural standards. There are no spaces between houses, it's like a continuous series of rowhouses. Finally, you often find BEAUTIFUL houses right next to a dilapidated piece of shit. Most of the time, you can't really tell from the outside.

Anyway, my newfound friend drove us to his house and when we got there, I was like uhh...this looks like a piece of shit. But then, he opened the front door and I found myself in the most charming foyer lined in marble with old antique furniture pieces and beautiful Baroque paintings in gilded frames that must have weighed a ton. His father, dressed in the most intimidatingly beautiful suit, greeted me with a kiss and a handshake and grilled me about where I came from, what I thought of Argentina, etc. We went into the kitchen where there was this box overflowing with bite-sized desserts and sandwiches and we ended up eating and talking till 6 in the morning.

This kid's grandfather was the cousin of Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco, which was hilarious to tease him about, until his father overheard me and lectured me on how Franco was trying to preserve Christian conservatism in a country that was losing its way to Socialism and Sexual backwardness. HAHA. Furthermore, this kid has 4 citizenships: Argentina, Bolivia, Italy, and Spain...and he has a passport for all of them except Bolivia. Crazy, huh?

Anyway, that's my update. Sorry it sucked, but hopefully I'll have better stories for you now that I'm feeling better.

Twilight Zone

Also, Beijing is a place where some weird shit can happen. Case in point...

Last week I was leaving my friend's apartment and saw that my new bike (I had just bought it a week before to replace another bike that was stolen) was gone. That bike cost me about 500kuai (about $75) and I was pretty pissed that it was stolen. I even had two locks on it because I thought that would deter thieves, but apparently not.

The next morning I'm going that same friend's apartment and my bike is there again, propped up against the wall. The two locks are the gone but the bike is in perfect condition, for whatever reason returned by the thief. But now my friend's bike was gone. None of it really made any sense.

Her bike has not yet been magically returned.

ZHONGGUO

A lot has been happening here in China. It's mostly been things like art openings or parties or dinners and bars, with occasional shows or other more unusual events. For instance, spending a night in a half-built castle, the centerpiece of an abandoned Thai-invested Disneyworld rip-off amusement park called "Wonderland". The locals had commandeered the land and had begun growing crops over the unfinished construction. The sight of a concrete castle towering over golden fields of crops, surrounded by mountains, is a "Wonderland" in its own way.

The particular art/music/fashion ("culture", I guess we'd call it, although reserving that term for only these activities seems to belittle everything else about this place) scene here is relatively small. It feels that way, at least. Earlier this week I went to a launching party for a magazine. Last night I went to an art award party run by this high-end cognac brand (Martell or something, I can't remember…clearly the cognac was fairly effective), and afterwards went to a rooftop club/bar's grand opening and then went to a Russian club with some models.

The most fascinating thing about this place is the juxtaposition in both time and space of radically different things. I suppose this is characteristic of many large cities, but for whatever reason it feels more obvious and poignant here in Beijing, maybe because of an emphasized clashing of cultures. One moment I am overstimulated in a skeezy club watching Russian girls dancing in lingerie, then thirty minutes later I'm passing by small, quiet gatherings of people cooking food on sidewalks. Even in that latter instance is some strange contrasting situations. On the way to my place out in west Beijing, I always pass by a small group of four or five people on the sidewalk, sitting around a small fire cooking and eating together. It's 3am, and they are on the next block from my apartment, an area with the reputation as Beijing's electronics center. Here they are cooking kebabs over an open flame in a way that could be described as "primitive" (I don't mean it in any condescending or offensive manner although it's hard to use that word without those implications) underneath these silhouettes of monolithic electronic department stores.

But as I was saying before, the "culture" scene here is relatively small and fairly easy to break into, especially if you're a foreigner. The "culture" scene here is run almost exclusively by foreigners and it almost seems like a form of cultural imperialism, these Westerners imposing upon Chinese youth what's "cool", and funny thing is that Chinese youth are all to eager to accept the teachings of these arbiters of hip. The (young) Chinese tend to romanticize foreigners in a perverse sense. Perverse in that this reverence is so potent that it almost turns into some kind of reverse-racism where other young Chinese people get the blunt end of the stick. For example, Chinese guys are no competition against white guys, because Chinese girls look up to white guys and down on Chinese guys. This doesn't affect me personally, but it's still infuriating that Western culture has penetrated so deeply into Chinese culture (pun intended).

In so eagerly accepting being told what's "cool", they altogether miss out on the fundamentals of "cool", that to be cool is to be your own and do what you want to do. I'm oversimplifying but basically, doing what other people tell you to do isn't "cool".

Anyways, it is easy for a foreigner to break into the scene here. That is precisely the reason why a lot of foreigners end up coming here. It's called "LAH", or "Lame At Home". If you're lame at home, come to China and you'll be considered cool. I can't say this is true for all foreigners (I'm cool at home too, duh). Most of the foreigners I know here are genuinely awesome people and came to China for different reasons than feeling like a loser at home. But there are certainly some that you meet that clearly escaped to China so they could live out ridiculous fantasies of fame and prestige that are so easily played out here.

A good vacation

No one knows what happened to the middle of our internship, but whoa, it's almost over! This time next week, I will be sleeping in the comfort of my own bed. It will be amazing.

Everyone is SO excited to go home, but sometimes when I'm bored at work (i.e. now), I start reminiscing about this trip and how great it was... despite the obvious fact that I'm still here/not ecstatic about it.

When I think back on my days here, little things seem to override all the drag and frustrations I've felt. Little things like spending all of Thursday trying to make dumplings and forcing each other to eat peanut butter, chocolate, and bananas wrapped in raw dough; like everyone singing Home (see below) over and over on Friday and then--as we progressed to more intense songs and finished off more bottles of wine--dancing/thrashing around the dinner table; like eating out of huge pots on Saturday and playing with orphans who, to my relief, seemed happy and loved; like sitting in silence at a bar on Sunday, tears in everyone's eyes as montages of dreams made and broken (GHANA) played over and over on the TV.

It's like my disappointment gets scrunched up into one small ball, whereas these little memories expand and exaggerate into epic moments filled with emotion, bonding, and meaning.

I guess it's comforting to know that those small moments are enough to make me look back and say that it was a good experience, despite how badly I want it to be over...

notes:
(1) related article on the psychology of holidays and what makes a vacation a happy one.
(2)related video

Update

So recently I've been seeing my future in numbers and it's not pretty. NYC housing costs (approx 1500 a month if I'm lucky), my potential marketing salary (GIVEN that I get a job to begin with) to be 50K AT BEST, $10 for a pack of cigarettes, my amounting student loans, future cell phone bills, the fact that I'm turning 22 soon, and the list goes on.

Accompanied with this dose of reality, my internship in NY has also revealed things about myself to myself:
I drink a cup of black coffee everyday. Can't be healthy.
I always pick lounging around and generally being lazy over going out and getting crunkkkkk. So antisocial.
I have relinquished control over my intern group project. Very surprising. Although this might influenced by the fact that I believe the project matters very little.
I tend to accidentally curse in front of my co-workers. Not so good.
I am kinda attracted to my married co-worker? Really not good.

On a completely unrelated note, I've just learned the word "meme" and have discovered many internet memes I'm completely behind in knowing about. My favorite so far:

Brother Sharp, China's "most stylish beggar" and "a starkly handsome Chinese man walking with a model's measured gait, and wearing a rag-tag but well co-ordinated overcoat on top of a leather jacket. His eyes peer into the middle distance, in what one fan described as 'a deep and penetrating way', and he strides confidently forward."

la plata, buenos aires

so i know it's been forever. p.s., i love the new format of the blog. kudos to linda, i'm guessing?

i'm so sorry it's been ages since posting; life here is time consuming albeit slow. very slow. too slow.

anyway, i arrived in buenos aires a little over a couple weeks ago. they don't have as strict of emissions standards here so all the cars emit a LOT of exhaust that makes the entire city smell like a garage perpetually. the weather is temperate to cold. there are a few days when it's perfect, but it doesn't feel perfect because of the pollution :(

it's okay though. the architecture's absolutely beautiful in the city. i actually am working in la plata which is the province capital, about 45-50 minutes away from the center of buenos aires.

work here is slow. i don't have very many official assignments, but i've taken over an account, which basically involves an agreement with the local produce distributor that allows a local cooperative to obtain about 10,000 kilos of fruit per week for free, with which to make marmalade. i'll help with the accounting/budgeting/marketing/and distributing. i am working with this great culinary professor who is offering her services/expertise to the women.

speaking of food. it's horrible here. NOBODY can handle spice here. ugh, i have to venture into the city to find a korean or mexican restaurant but i haven't really had the opportunity because the office allows for a food stipend but only if i eat with them or go to a location within la plata. and i've been spending way too much money.

i could go on an on but i'm gonna end with a dramatic story. this past friday, the other interns and i went to a gay club called AMERIKA. it's known for being really scandalous, but i didn't know HOW scandalous. it was about 4:30am and i decided to explore the other parts of the club. i went through this walkway/balcony that connected the cumbia/latin music room to the electronica room and i noticed that the entire balcony was dark and filled with people even though there wasn't any music playing in that section. i ventured in to see what was going on and realized it was hundreds of gay argentine men/boys feeling each other up, making out, giving each other handjobs and blowjobs....

i immediately got like 10 hands groping me through my clothes and got pulled aside by this really hot paraguayan guy about my age. he had a ripped body and his clothes were off, he made me start stroking his **** while making out with me intensely. i couldn't resist but after a while decided to get out of there because other guys were joining in and trying to get my clothes off. by the time i stumbled out of there, i realized i had been robbed of my passport, my credit card, my penn card, my cell phone, and some money.

SHIT.

oh well. going to the embassy either tomorrow or friday.

jaded?

Two weekends ago, I went to a World Cup game (so great!), and on the way back we somehow crossed the Botswana border illegally… it’s kind of a long story that sounds like it should be exciting but isn’t. Ending: I was an illegal immigrant for about a day but have since then regained my status as a legal visitor.

Last weekend, we went camping in the Kalahari Desert, which was absolutely beautiful but so effing cold. Despite sleeping with 5 layers of clothing, 4 blankets (not including the one wrapped around my face), and 3 pairs of socks, I still woke up shivering and couldn't feel my right foot for ~2 hours. At least I didn't get iced like one of the guys did at 6:30 AM (bros icing bros!). Unfortunately, we have no crazy stories about lions and leopards coming into our camp to tell, but it was still fun. We DID manage to see a ton of lions and a freshly killed giraffe, though! Woo.

All the other Penn interns are gone this weekend, so I will be hanging out with the UVA law student who is also too poor to fly to Cape Town or go to Vic Falls like everyone else. It will be interesting. And awkward, probably.

It's kind of sad, but I think most people here are ready to go home. We keep making lists of things we're excited to go home to, like fresh fruit (SO EXCITED) and haircuts (AHH!). My hair is out of control right now, but I'm (obviously) too afraid to cut it here, despite the fact that every woman I meet tells me I should let her cut my hair so that she can take my hair for her extensions. Most conversations I have with the local women here go something like this: "Dumela ma! (hello)" "Dumela ma. What is your name?" "Linda." "Cut your hair and give it to me." "Oh."

I bet they'd pay me to let them cut my hair. I wonder how much I could make...

An Irish-English hodgepodge

So I tried posting from London, but sadly there's no real good way to blog photos from an iphone. Since I'm home now and back to the 9-5 grind, I'm going to have to just give you guys a whirlwind tour of my vacation, starting with the Dubs, before I am late for work. Yikes.

Dublin





A beautiful city - small, friendly and bright. I'd imagined something gray and cloudy, Dickensian, with a fine rain at the annoying brink of needing and not needing an umbrella constantly falling from the sky. The weather, in fact, was perfect - 70 and sunny the entire time, which we were told was miraculous. ("You brought the sun with you from America," - Dave No. 1. My friend Alyssa and I met many a Dave.) One of my favorite things about this city was how intimate it was. I'd say it was a bit smaller than Philadelphia, and equally if not more walkable. There were so many different types of neighborhoods to see, both north and south of the river Liffey, which is supposed to separate the city into a wealthier, more commercial and political South section and a more residential and less manicured northern section. Another favorite thing: how talkative people are and how easy it is to get into conversations with them. Not that the British were totally reticent, but I found they were more like east-coast Americans, not willing to open up too much in conversation, whereas the Irish were extremely friendly and ready to talk. And hand out their phonenumbers. The bar scene was expensive in the touristy areas, but fine in places that were more out of the way. We never got bored enough to spend time getting to the Guiness factory or the Jameson distillery, but in the course of three days we had enough pints to prove to ourselves that the Guiness really is better the closer it is to home.

The Mean Streets of Beijing

So tonight was pretty eventful. We went to this opening thrown by some French socialites that epitomized why I think a lot of art is bullshit, but at the same time I embraced it, understanding it's function as a means for people to get together and mingle. The former French president's illegitimate daughter was to paint on a high-fashion designer dress, live. She started, the bongo player and pianist were way out of time, and she just kind of drew a couple strokes and was done in no more than a minute. Everyone stood in an awkward silence that said, "is that it?" and then someone close to her asked about the meaning, to which she sheepishly replies, "no meaning". After some more awkward silence one of the event organizers came up to her, patted her on the shoulder, and complimented her work.

Later, we were on a bus uptown and I was with my girlfriend and two of our friends, also foreigners. My girlfriend and I were talking, huddled together, and some fat Chinese guy next to me starts calling me a "dumb pussy" in Chinese. I turn and look him in the eye and he asks me if I understand, in Chinese. I tell him I understand and we get off at the same stop. I'm walking away and he smugly stares at me as if he's won, so I flick the fat schmuck off, and he gets all riled up and comes to start fighting me. He grapples me and punches me in the head, and it's weak so I don't feel it, and I rip off his glasses and chuck them into the pavement. His parents end up pulling him off me and I walk away with them yelling at me. The fat ass was yelling at me as I walked away, asking if I was really Chinese. He was implying I should be ashamed for being with a white girl and having foreign friends. It was ridiculous. It was fun.

Ubiquitous Dogs and Comic Sans

Somewhere, a dog barked.
I'm Comic Sans, asshole.

World Cup

Being here for the World Cup is incredible. All the games are broadcasted live and without commercials, which I didn't really even notice until someone mentioned it today. Everyone here is so full of spirit. Sometimes seeing people that happy and united makes me want to cry. I am a baby.

I am going to the Australia vs. Ghana game this coming Saturday. It was kind of a last minute decision, but luckily things fell into place really quickly. We are getting transported there for free by the Indian grocery store man's friends! Woo Australia sucks but I'm excited to root for an African team. Yeah Ghana! The tickets were $160, and at first I was a bit hesitant.. but then I went gambling (again) and made back the money, so I felt okay about it. And free transport! WHOooooo!


Okay, it's like almost 10-- way past my bedtime. GOODNIGHT.

Adventures with Anthony

Ch.1 The Adventure of the NYC Subway
Despite having communicated very vague details, we decided to meet in the massive 42 st subway station. Two trains had come and go while I waited and despaired. It wasn't until the crowd dispersed that I turned and we spotted each other: amazingly, we had managed to find each other on the platform in under 20 min. Awww.

We then transfered onto a series of trains on our way to Bleeker St to meet up with Maddie & Co. We caught up on our lives quickly, me talking about my new devotion to marketing and him talking about cattle.

Ch. 2 The Adventure of K-Town
With Maddie & Co, we whiled away time drinking fruitpunchvodkas and playing Taboo to the sweet sounds of 90s pop. Of course, Anthony quickly became "very committed" to the game (shouting "FUCKYOU" to his teammate upon very word not guessed correctly). Then strangers appeared and we went to K-Town for a 3am snack. Of course, food was not up to certain standards and we had bill drama (damn strangers). But we left intact and full, if not satisfied.

Ch.3 The Adventure of the Night Over
Here we went our separate ways to get home. Anthony was staying a few blocks from me so we took the train toward our destination of 103 st from 34 st. This took about 30 min and in my late night stupor, I led us onto the wrong train into East Harlem. Luckily another good-looking college-aged white male (APPROACHABLE!) did too, and we took a cab together back to my place. We then went up to my apartment and sadly by we, I mean me and Anthony. He wanted to shower at my place, for he had never used a public shower in the US (NEVER?! Never.) He had planned to leave and walk to where he was staying but ended up crashing on my couch. Score.

Ch. 4 The RUSH Adventure
RUSH: An 18+ gay club, where girls pay more cover than guys. While Anthony entertained his UNICEF friends, me and Crystal stood at the bar and stared, facsinated with the 18yr.old boys table dancing (one of which was dressed as a True Blood vampire), the adorableeee bartender, and a built dancer who, in Anthony's words (and we agree) "oozed sex." Also, sometime during the night Anthony became inexplicably very drunk.

Ch.5 The Adventure of the Night Over, No. 2
While waiting for the subway train, Anthony decided his feet hurt and took off his shoes and rolled up his jeans. Again: Anthony was in socks in the NYC subway station. Crystal was embarassed. Then Anthony performed his banana song. Crystal was entertained. Anthony quote of the night: "Oh poo poo."

Afterward Anthony came to my apartment for another shower, before which he promptly fell asleep on my living room floor.

Ch. 6 The Adventure of our Last Time Together in NY
I thought we were going to have dinner but instead I got a phone call. I'll miss you Anthony.

yeah usa!

So I found out that the boy who had been using my laptop actually spilled wine on the keyboard. GAH. After a day of rest, my computer finally turned on, but the keyboard connection is all messed up (i.e. when you type "s," it comes out "sw"). I spent Saturday running around town trying to get someone to fix (or at least clean the inside of) my laptop, but no one will even touch it because it's a Sony, a brand people aren't really familiar with here. THUS I must wait until I return home to get it fixed... I did end up buying a screwdriver and taking apart my laptop to see if I could clean it myself, but that did nothing. There was a pretty substantial amount of wine in it, though. GR. That was the drama of the weekend.

In other news, this weekend I felt so well connected, haha. On Saturday, a man who basically founded one of the biggest grocery chains in southern Africa invited us all over for dinner because his son is going to Penn in the fall. The house was incredible-- it was like an Indian palace, and they stuffed us with tons of roasted meat--lamb, chicken, pork-- as just the appetizer. We stayed and watched the USA vs. England game over some wine and scotch. Wooo USA! The next day, a few of us went hiking (see picture) and befriended a (white) family from South Africa. The father is a group manager or something for a diamond company in Botswana, so again, very well off. They gave us a free lift home and their contact info, insisting that they must show us around the area another weekend. They also invited us to stay at any of their houses (they have one in Jo-burg, another in Mozambique--ON THE BEACH, and more in other cool places but I'm blanking on where they are) if we ever need housing in those areas. Cooool.

I get that it's an old house, but....

This morning I woke up to the sound of pieces of my ceiling falling on my desk. I've been hearing something scrambling and digging around up there, probably on the roof of the part of my room that has the bay windows and sticks out from the building, but I didn't really worry. At home there are mice in the attic during the winter that make the same kinds of sounds, annoying, but harmless -- there's nothing in the attic but a fan and insulation. There's someone that lives above me here (Geoff, actually, from Gregory) but then there's also roof above the part of my room where my bed is because the third floor, where his room is, is smaller than the second. The section of roof that's above the bay windows, and consequently my bed and desk, is apparently some animal's habitat (mouse, squirrel, I don't know -- a friend at work said it was probably either raccoons or possums if they're nesting in my roof...) and this morning I woke up to the sound of it digging in the ceiling, and I could actually see pieces of ceiling and plaster dust and little twigs fall out of this tiny hole as I listened to it dig.

So I came home from work, and my landlord still hasn't sent anyone to fix this. But they said there will be someone here tomorrow, so that's good. I was afraid that I would come home from work and the hole would be like 2-feet wide and a raccoon would be living in my apartment. Luckily there's been no change, really. I'm leaving the detritus on my desk and floor as proof. And off to Ireland in two days!

well.

Sorry I complain so much on here!

I hung out with Knight again last night, this time with 3 other interns. We got drinks at some fancy country club near his apartment, and then we went to a pub nearby where we thought there'd be karaoke but instead turned out to be a lot of expats watching the World Cup concert. It was chilllll.

Today one of the girls mentioned that we hung out with Knight to a program supervisor, and APPARENTLY he is no good, too! The girl just emailed me and wrote: "ALSO Knight is a stalker. gill and nicky said he has caused so much trouble in the past and they had to call the police. i think she'll tell you about him. so be careful! ahhhhhhhhhhh"

Ergh. Everyone is so sketch! Trust no one!

ALSO I CAME HOME LAST NIGHT TO FIND MY LAPTOP DEAD. I let people use it to check emails and facebook while I was gone (since no one else's computer connects to the internet here-- no one can figure out why), and now it absolutely won't turn on! I don't know what happened to it. I'm most upset about the fact that all my med school application stuff is on there. GRRFCK.

Shanghai

Is really expensive.

Tuesday Night

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Baby Pictures

My mother charged me with the task of organizing our baby pictures. I thought I'd scan a few and show you. I could only find a couple of my crazy-hair pictures...my memory faltered; I didn't really start the crazy-hair phase until I was 8 or 9, so yea...if I find a good one I'll be sure to post it :P

good news

I have not seen my stalker in like 4 days!

Also, I never ended up going to my supervisors about him, but I DID tell our student helper (the Univ of Botswana student who is basically our babysitter). She had actually seen him talking to me once, and she was like "Ohh that guy you were talking to? Kgosi? I was wondering why he was talking to you! I had a class with him last year... Oh Kgosi, everyone would just stare at him. He is a catch-- you should give him a chance." Not. Helpful. She told me that he's probably just not used to having girls say no to him, and she assured me that he is (probably) harmless. So that's good.

The interns here are planning lots and lots of trips. I wish I had money to go on all of them... There is a trip to Victoria Falls (world wonder!), but it's $700 (!) which is way more than I was expecting, especially since it's IN Botswana. I feel pressured to travel because it's a great opportunity to do so, but I also feel bad spending all this money, especially since this summer I'll be draining the funds with med school apps.

Also, today is my birthday! I'm not a big birthday person, so I refuse to really celebrate it here. Also, after my disastrous night last weekend (what the other interns have dubbed "Linda's big night out"), I don't think I can handle the taste of alcohol for at least another month. Knight, the guy I met a few days ago, did ask me if my friends and I wanted to check out an Indian restaurant with him tonight, though. So we might do that. Who knows. I'm going to say that I'm not 21 until I use my new, horizontal drivers license at the 40th & market store and buy a shit ton of alcohol for all of us to consume.

HBO.NYC.MTA

my new schedule: leave the apartment at 8:15, walk 3 blocks, catch a train, transfer, leave the station, walk another three blocks, and get to the HBO office (times square) by 8:50. I take the elevator to the 5th floor, buy coffee, swipe in, then sit down at my cubicle surrounded by true blood posters and log on to my outlook account (lisa.zheng@hbo.com). i'm in advertising & promotions, so i'm watching shows, reading scripts, helping out with the planning and executing of marketing plans, and will start my real projects tomorrow.

my observations: HBO so far is the most organized and structured intern program i've been in. compared to NBCU, it also seems a bit restricting. for example, the HR evp gave an introduction in which he emphasized that interns should be curious, but also respectful. he then went on for about 5 minutes about this respect, aka KNOW YOUR PLACE. NYC itself is so different from LA, in that it seems a lot more focused on appearances (and not just the people), from the swanky building decor to the fancy bathrooms to the intern welcome gifts (true blood, season 1). also, many of the interns themselves come from prep school backgrounds with this whole eastcoast, hampton summers, do you know this person, omg yes we went to etc together culture. it's beyond just money, whereas LA was more like, who do you know in the industry, and yeah i have money. interesting, and a little off putting. my new plan: so i think i've decided to go with marketing. and with NYC. for now (with the eventual moving to LA to live. hopefully). and HBO. there are employee benefits, a nice building (with a gym), they pay for your mba, and the people are incredibly nice. and looking at my resume, which basically reads marketing, why not? i enjoy it, and HBO's marketing is all the best parts of it (brainstorming, planning, then making decisions- overall more business oriented with creative elements). and this just seems the most logical. and my mom's happy.

my first weekend: asian club with maddie and her frat. called "hiro". sketch old dudes and young drunk asian girls. but nice decor. anthony would be disgusted.

my diet: restaurant variety is amazing here. and relatively cheap. also, i still don't like korean food. i can eat it, but it just doesn't taste good to me anymore. sad day.

how's that for concise?

ps. notice my awesome business card.

Fashionably late?

First of all, I apologize for my late arrival to this wonderful blog, both in concept and in realization. The glimpse into your lives has proved fascinating, moving, and even frightening.

Francis: that day, when you bought and gave up your puppy, was both eventful and ultimately inconsequential. What a queer experience, but how moving!

Valeria: how I long to venture into the wild, and witness the enigmatic beauty of outer space, as you did in Delaware...

Lisa: your words are concise and infrequent. I'm disappointed. :P

Linda: you should really reach out to a bigger guy-friend you can trust; ask him to have a little talk with your stalker and to threaten his life if he says even one more word to you. Both Francis and I are genuinely concerned about your well-being. But how fascinating are your photos and your stories about life in Africa! All the small accounts like the bathroom sign and having to iron your underwear for fear of being devoured by infant pests...I envy your bravery!

What have I been up to?
I have been stuck in Colorado since my departure from Philadelphia.

Some of you know this already, but I missed the rent deadline so was forced to postpone my internship start-date by a month. Instead of ending my internship in late July and traveling around South America for a few weeks before returning to Penn, I shall end my trip in late August without the thrills of trekking through the Amazon or the Andes...

Oh well, we all know that exerting much physical energy is not very Anthony Leem.

This Friday I shall be in New York City for a Social Impact Business conference, to which I am being sent by my microfinance firm in Buenos Aires. I do hope to spend some time with Lisa during my brief sojourn back on the East Coast. I also discovered that the UNICEF Summit will be held on the same weekend just a few blocks away, so I hope to stop by and say hello to my colleagues from across the nation's campus initiatives.

I promise you all wonderful photos and exotic stories in a couple weeks' time, when I join Linda in the Southern Hemisphere, where toilets flush in the opposite direction (though I wonder if she could possibly corroborate the truth of this phenomenon, since it seems she is living without civilization...lol).

Faith restored

My friend Rachel came to Botswana 3 years ago through this program and made a few local friends. She put me in touch with one guy named Knight, who has been trying to meet up with me over coffee for the past two weeks. I was initially sketched out by the idea of meeting this random guy one on one, but after running into him a few times last week (at the very few places there are to hang out around here), I got a good "I'm not a sketchy stalker or creep!" vibe from him. He would always greet me and introduce himself to the other interns without intruding on our business/ harassing us/etc., so when I ran into him this past Friday, I finally agreed to have coffee with him.

So yeah, we had coffee yesterday. He really does seem like a genuinely nice guy, and he carries himself really well. He’s fairly quiet but likes to talk, and everything he says is in a polite, respectful, chill and non-threatening or suggestive tone. It turns out his mother is the speaker of parliament here, and she used to be minister of local gov't and minister of presidential affairs and public administration. He does microfinance and travels a shit ton with his job, but it’s also very clear that because he’s from a political family, he’s just plain loaded and goes all over the place. It was really refreshing to talk to this guy about Botswana without having him be aggressively forward (or forward at all!).

Maybe it’s just an elaborate scheme to lure me into a false sense of security, but he seems really legit and not interested in anything other than helping me have a good 2 months in Botswana. I’m not sure how many risks I want to take in hanging out with him, though. For example, he said that if the other interns have trouble figuring out travel arrangements to be in S. Africa, I'm welcome to drive down with his group of friends since they're going to go to a lot of World Cup stuff. I have a feeling that it wouldn't be smart for just me to go with them, but I'm pretty tempted by the offer because figuring out travel/accommodations is a PAIN.

Crossing my fingers and hoping that he turns out to be as legit as he seems.

the perfect campsite

Location: Delaware water gap

Last week my friend Chloe and I decided to go camping, so we drove out a few hours north of the city along the Delaware river and into New Jersey to this area we had been to before called the Delaware water gap. It's mostly a very civilized recreational area for families to have "outdoor" types of fun, but there is also a more wild part where the Appalachian trail comes through, where you're allowed to camp if you're through-hiking, which we weren't. Still, after walking uphill for a bit carrying sleeping bags, food and a case of beer, we found this amazing grassy open space with a rocky outcrop that looked out over the valley and this long lake that had a camp at one end. It was the perfect place for a campsite, but there were no signs of anyone having used it really in a while - no fire circles or marks from tents or anything. We sort of improvised a clear area for a fire and surrounded it with rocks, then made a fire and whittled sticks with our pocketknives like true old men and cooked hotdogs on them and then toasted marshmallows. It was a really warm night, and we fell asleep soon after the sun finished setting (this took a few hours, with the shadow of the ridge we were sitting on slowly moving east over the valley). The whole time we kept hearing voices from down in the valley, as though kids were running around and playing down there around the camp, but we could barely ever pick out anyone walking by the boat house on the shore. Around 3 AM, I woke up almost sober and looking at the stars over my head saw the band of the milky way. I've only seen the stars like that a handfull of times before, and it's always astounding to see the sky so full like that, far away from light pollution and in the darkest part of the night. In the morning we woke up around 7 because the sun was beaming down on our cliff and made another fire for a second round of hotdogs. Then it got unbearably sunny and hot with the fire there, so we packed up, hopped in a lake, dried off and drove home.

What we saw:

I'm so happy I live here again

Before



After



Yesterday I moved back to the city into the place that I have to myself for the next year. It's a 2nd-floor apartment in a converted townhouse on Spruce, and it's so big that I fit a full bed, arm chair, desk, two book shelves, two small tables, one kitchen table with two chairs and a kitchen shelf into it with room to spare. It's only one room, too. The ceilings are extremely high and there are six windows. The view looks out on a big tree in the backyard and the houses across the way. All the fixtures are probably 90 years old, but that gives it some kind of charm, as do the patches of loose floorboards. Needless to say, I love it very much.

I regret to say that

I would not mind jumping on a plane right now and going back to the States. I wish I were spending my summer in Cali or Boston or NYC or Philly or even Michigan. Being here makes me miss Philly so much, and each day I'm getting more excited about going back to school...

Everything seems to move slower here: service, people, days, etc. Work is not exciting, and I would probably be more useful if I just volunteered at some soup kitchen in Detroit. I guess it's disappointing so far--especially work, and things probably won't pick up anytime in the next two months. It's also frustrating because in any city in the US, you can use the internet to find out about cool opportunities or events to check out, or I could find some side project to get involved in, but here, they don't really use the internet. :( You can't find anything about anything! The city is also really inaccessible if you don't have a car; the only places within walking distance are my job and the shopping center that I already go to (at least) every other day. More than ever, I want to make some rash decision like go off and hang out with the locals.. Find out what there is to do in this city...

I'm also just disappointed in myself for being disappointed in this experience, for even being able to say that I really want to be in Philly right now. Many of the other interns are somewhat frustrated with their job placements, too, and how useless they feel, so I think it's mostly just this program-- I'm completely unneeded as an intern here. They have nothing for me to do (except for maybe data entry, which I do NOT want to do). If I could, I'd abandon this internship and go volunteer at some orphanage or go to an outside villages and take pictures all day. If I could, I'd stop being so scared and just be rash and immerse myself in this country, adventure with locals and such. I think that would help alleviate this problem.. but also probably cause some other problems. Sigh.

i had a puppy

I only have two pairs of pants here in Beijing, and I've only been wearing one pair for about the past week, so yesterday I grabbed some cash and went over to the Uniqlo across the street from my apartment. On the way I have to cross a skybridge, and that night on that skybridge was a man selling puppies out of a box. I have been in the process of getting my mom a dog for awhile now, and I considered getting one here. I first went to the mall across the street, but I decided that a puppy would be a better option.
I went back and asked how much they were, and he told me 230kuai (which is how much a pair of pants would have cost me). After not much careful consideration I bought one and took it back to my apartment. The one I picked looked like Simba with much darker fur.
In my apartment it took some time getting adjusted, and spent a lot of time tugging on and untying my shoelaces. As I watched it the weight of the situation set in. I realized I didn't have any food in the apartment, I don't have enough money to feed us both, I'd have to take it to the vet and get it vaccinated, I'd have to deal with customs bringing it back into the US, and in general I had no idea how to take care of a puppy. My grandparents would also not be cool with me having a puppy in their extra apartment, but I figured it be safe since they never came up to the apartment I lived in. As I was contemplating the rashness of my decision, I looked up and saw that my laundry had been done. So now I knew that the caretaker of their apartment also came up to this one, and would probably tell them about the unwanted guest.
So I was faced with a tough decision. I have "disposed" of unwanted animals in the past, but I got and still get a lot of shit for it, so I wasn't going to do that again. Instead I took the puppy right back to the man who sold it to me, and after a lot of convincing I got him to take it back, but he wouldn't give me back my money. I was fine with that, though. I deserved that.

stalker out of control

THIS IS GOING TO BE A HUGE RAMBLE. SORRY.
This guy is really creeping me out and absolutely won't leave me alone. sent me a text this weekend that said "hey btfl plis return my calls cuz im so in luv w u," then fucking showed up at my door yesterday 2 minutes after i returned from work (even checked to see if he was around the building when i entered and didn't see him. where he followed me from i have no idea). told him to leave me alone, told him that i didn't feel comfortable around him and that he shouldn't be at my dorm and that i was absolutely not interested in hanging out with him and that i was seeing someone at home.

Today I was walking back from work, not even near my building, and he fucking popped out of nowhere. "Don't you think all these coincidences are signaling like fate?" NO you fucking weirdo. He told me he liked that I was hard to get, a challenge, and that he respects that I have a boyfriend but that my boyfriend is probably fucking some girl right now and that we should just get together for these two months. NO. He kept asking what our plan was, and I said there is no plan, you need to leave me alone, stop following me, etc. He just replied by saying that he likes that I'm careful because he's careful, too, at which point he pulled out his HIV test results (negative). At one point I was so desperate to get rid of him that I was like how do you know I like guys, to which he said, "Ah, that's a fast way to try and get rid of me, but then I'd want you even more." AFDlk;jfne.

There are so many other parts of this conversation that enraged me that I'm not going to ramble about because there are actually too many. He actually had the nerve to ask if we could chat in my room afterwards. We even had this conversation in front of security guards, but they did nothing, and after I left I saw that they were joking around with him about something. I am going to talk to my program supervisors tomorrow because I am scared to go home from work every day, and I have like 7 more weeks here. Sadly I don't know if talking to security will do anything because he is also a student on the campus and has a right to be on it, and I'm also terrified that anything I do will just drive him to try harder and be more aggressive. I just need like a 24/7 body guard or something. Or to get a buzz cut and wear shades all the time.

ARGHhhhhhhhhh.

i'm having the weirdest dreams here

I actually dreamt that I accidentally killed a man here because he was being creepy! paranoid.

Oh yeah, they won't wash our "particulars" so we have to hand wash everything here. They also told us that there are flies that will lay eggs in damp clothing, and the offspring will then burrow into your skin... so you have to iron all your underwear, bras, etc.

Weird.

I've also never seen so many stray cats anywhere. There are hardly any dogs.. just cats. cats run this town.

THE COUNT

smoke-free days: 0

no makeups at the office

I've noticed PLIZ (and plis) is commonly used here instead of PLZ. Also, the ABC song is different--- they slow down the LMNOP part but speed up the end, and Z is pronounced "zed."

the wet whistle

I move back to campus a week from now, so for two weeks I've been finding things to do at home and enjoying the suburbs as a 21-year-old. Here's Kiri the exotic fire-breathing belly dancer who I paid a 5-dollar cover to see at the bar of a country club located behind our local supermarket. Who even knew Cheltenham had a nightlife? And how.

So I guess I have a stalker

When I came back from work yesterday, my fellow interns told me that some guy (presumably the masters student who followed me back the other day) was perched outside our dorm and asking them questions like "Where's Linda? She lives here, right? Is she back yet? When is she coming back?"

Not cool.

HELFEST2010

One of the many internships I'm juggling (and gradually dropping) is a writing gig for an online music magazine based in Shanghai. I'm acting as one of their Beijing correspondents along with two other writers. I met one of the others at the INTRO Electronic Music Festival, and the other I was to meet at this other show. She briefly mentioned it in an e-mail, without divulging any particularly descriptive information, so I headed towards the venue assuming the show was just another Chinese rock band, that is to say, a tired, worn-out sound and performance.

A side note: Beijing is a fairly homogeneous city in its architecture, which makes navigating unfamiliar areas extremely frustrating. As I was trying to find the venue, my co-writer was giving me directions on the phone, describing landmarks to help guide my way. The homogeneity of Beijing's buildings makes it so that every building can only be vaguely described by a few characteristics (color, size...) and you can almost always find a building that somewhat fits a description, even if you're on the other side of the city. So I found all her landmarks, but they weren't at all arranged in the way they should have been, and after resigning to meet at the subway station, I realized I had gotten off on the wrong stop and had spent the past hour wandering around in the wrong neighborhood.

Coming from Philadelphia, I'm entirely unfamiliar with the phenomenon of venues and clubs being located on any floor but the first. This venue was on the third floor of monolithic structure reminiscent of the Kaaba, and as we climbed the stairs towards the muffled music it became clear that my assumptions were all wrong. The merch table had sprawled across it posters boldly announcing HELFEST2010, and on stage were a bunch of manic musicians dressed as Vikings, playing what sounded like extremely triumphant renditions of old Irish jaunts.

I had no idea what the fuck was going on. It was a seizure of strobe lights and double-pedaled kick drums. There was a scraggly ent-of-a-man wailing on his axe, braided beard and all, some Swedish girl twiddling on an accordion, a crazed man on the fiddle, and some other instrumentation that I didn't really pay attention to. I'm not well-versed enough in metal subgenres to understand their nuances and reliably distinguish between them, so I can't with any confidence state the type of metal fest I was at. But what I can say is it played out exactly as I ever have expected a metal gathering to, with Satan horns flung out above the raging crowd, a hoard of tightly-gripped fists and untameable sweaty hair reaching high into a whirlwind of fog and lights.

At one point, the singer announced that he was splitting the audience into two sides. Holy shit, I thought, this is my one chance to be in a wall-of-death. So from the fringes of the crowd I push myself to the front of one side, ready to charge. But then it turns out to be some lame side-vs-side singing contest. Not. Metal.

oh, and also

It turns out that it wasn't just the airport people--the men here are quite forward! Three guys approached me on the way back from work yesterday (like a 5 minute walk) to ask me for my number. It's not just that they ask-- they like won't leave you alone or take any excuses. One of the guys was a masters student at the university, and he FOLLOWED me all the way back to the block of dorms I live in (and then asked me if I wanted to smoke with him and his friends...)!

It would be really fun to hang out with the locals, but we've been warned so many times to be careful because they probably just want to take advantage of us and our money. It would be such an experience, though! But not a smart idea... and I can't think of any other intern who would be up for that risk. It's also weird because the other interns were saying that they actually find the men here really reserved, so either I am just really naive/not used to this, or I just look easier than them to approach/harrass (because I haven't heard any of them say anything about creepers following them/trying to get numbers)... The masters student also kept throwing out words like "exotic" in our conversation, which made me feel really uncomfortable, so maybe it also has to do with the fact that I'm Asian...

Hm.

to follow lisa's trend

what we saw:


where we ate:


what we ate:


what we watched:

everyone's so excited!

so i leave for new york in 5 days. 5 DAYS. i've also gained like 5 pounds from just eating, sleeping and reading scifi novels (i'm working my way through the entire Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow series. go me.)

since i have nothing more to say, i've included a picture of my backyard. enjoy ya'lls first glimpse of tuscaloosa, AL:

i found internet!

I think I am actually going to get along with the people here a lot better than I initially thought I would, so I'm pretty pumped.

I was the last of the interns to arrive, so I missed the interns' "let's all drink in the dorms and get to know each other" session. Sad, but we spent all day together yesterday at our orientation + safari trip + 30918 course meal. The meals here are filled with delicious foods but extremely heavy-- lots of meats (beef and chicken mostly), beans, breads, rice, pasta, etc. Our safari guide also gave us welcome drinks--aka champagne or orange juice for the non-drinkers. Obviously we just all made mimosas instead, though it took a while to convince our helper from univ of Botswana that people do actually drink these in the mornings. (This is kind of like when I tried to get an iced coffee at a cafe here and spent 20 minutes explaining that I literally just wanted regular coffee with ice in it, not a latte or frap-- in the end they just gave me a cup of coffee and a separate cup of ice. It worked, I guess.)

The temperature range is ridiculous. In the afternoon, it feels like summer in Philadelphia, but at night it's absolutely freezing. Yesterday my feet were numb for a good 3 hours.. I thought I was going to die.

Umm yeah. I'm at work right now. I just had to complete an online training course for biomedical ethics. Boring. I also apparently have to be at the hospital at 7:30 every morning for rounds and don't get off until 5. These are going to be some longass days. I kind of peeked in the hospital wards today-- it looks like one of those hospitals during wartime, with just a big room set up with beds and curtains in between. Going to be interesting.

BJ CITY!

It took an indignant 24 hours before I finally stepped foot in Beijing, 4AM local time. I hailed a cabbie who was pushing his car along with his hands and rode into a city who's smog became more obvious the harder the sun tried to push its way through.

On Saturday I took part in an ex-pat analogue of the Critical Mass bike movement as part of this effort to raise green awareness in a city that doesn't really give a shit about the environment. The message of our team of six riders was lost on the city's other millions of inhabitants who don't care about what some laowai have to say.
The route was from Wudaokou, which is a little north of where I'm staying, in the western part of the city, to the 798 Art District, which is on the opposite side of the city. The city's pretty enormous, so the ride ended up taking us 1.5 to 2 hours. I cruised it on some old Chinese-European crossbreed my grandfather gave me and helped me fix up.
While the official objective of Critical Mass is to raise bike awareness, the only thing it's really ever accomplished is raising the awareness of how cyclists can be huge assholes. That's lost on Beijingers, however, because everyone here is an asshole on the road. Navigating the city's streets are like playing a demented game of Frogger, where meticulous timing is necessary to avoid being swept off in a river of steel and blood. At one point a bus stopped inches from my left side when I neglected to look that way because I was too preoccupied with another car rushing towards my right. It hadn't honked or anything.
Because so many Beijingers use the bicycle as their primary means of transportation, Beijing has a solid bicycling infrastructure, with bike lanes on every main street, divided from main traffic by concrete islands. But physical barriers are little deterrents for Beijing drivers, so the bike lanes often become populated with impatient cab drivers and reckless bus drivers. Buses stop in the bike lane, and frequently you'll find yourself threading between two of these steel behemoths, like looming waves about to crash down on you from both sides.

The endpoint of the ride was at Beijing's premier art district, 798, where an electronic music festival called "INTRO" was taking place. For doing the ride, we got free admission, but of course the legion of guards plotted all over the district made things as difficult as possible for us, first denying us entry, then not letting us bring our bikes in, until the woman who organized the ride came and explained everything. Then I found out that we weren't comped on the after parties, which was part of the main draw for the whole thing. I can't believe I biked 10,000 miles for this shit.

The festival itself was alright, I'd never been to any big electronic gathering, but I saw the crowd that I had expected to see. A lot of foreigners - club kids and rave heads, fans of the "international DJ scene" according to the festival's brochure. Sprinkled among the crowds of stereotypical dance freaks were a few middle-aged Chinese mothers, there with their spawn, I assume, although I never saw them. I'd like to think that they were there for their own enjoyment.

There wasn't any booze, save for a small stand run by Absolut where they sold Chinese takeout soup containers filled with a weak vodka cranberry mix for a pricey 50 kuai each. The police had shut down the other bar in the area that was selling beer. So I finally broke and went to Absolut's tent, but found out that they had run out of ice and vodka at 4PM.

Later in the night we somehow ended up backstage, where there were many bottles of cheap Russian vodka, kegs of cheap Chinese beer, and of course, baijiu ("white liquor"), which is basically Chinese rubbing alcohol. I spoke with a man who had just eaten a bag of mushrooms, which he got as payment for doing a photo shoot - the last thing I had expected to hear in China (drugs are extremely illegal and hard to find here). We also ran into this old Chinese punk that I moshed with at a show the night before - apparently it was his party we were crashing, but he didn't seem to mind. With his blessing, we stole some grilled kebabs and drank our fill of liquor, and wandered off into the rest of the evening.

botswana!

My butt hurts from all the planes/sitting around, but I’ve finally arrived in Botswana! We don’t get internet in our dorms and have to walk quite far to get it, so... sucks. Also, I lost my luggage. Sucksx2.

Creepy men here/in the Johannesburg airport. A man who claimed to work for Delta asked if he could buy me a beer or at least a coffee. He kept asking me the same questions (obviously we weren’t communicating very well), and then he told me he noticed me messaging on my computer earlier. CREEP ALERT. So I replied, “Actually I need to finish working on my computer, so I’m going to go. Bye!” BUT THEN HE FOLLOWED ME!!! Thankfully he eventually fell asleep and nothing really happened, except he kept waking up for 3 seconds to tell me that I should sleep. I got kind of paranoid that he was waiting for me to sleep so he could steal my stuff... but I felt bad about leaving him in case his stuff got stolen. Anyways, this morning he asked me what gate I was going to so that he could wait with me... I lied and went into the bathroom. Thankfully he did not follow me there.

After I escaped from Delta man, I went to find coffee... The man working the coffee counter asked me where I’m from, and then he straight up asked, “Can I get an e-mail from you?” What? And then he scribbled his name, cell phone number, and email on the back of a receipt and gave it to me. I just hope that this is just a weird creepy-airport-men-in-South-Africa thing and not indicative of what life will be like in the next 2 months...

By the way, I have an embarrassingly hard time understanding people’s English here (here meaning South Africa, but I suspect the same will be true in Botswana). Also, even more embarrassing: I keep saying South America instead of South Africa. Out loud. Yikes.

our contact in france

in case your fb sleuthing skills are not as accomplished as mine, i present to you:

HELLO

Guys- feel free to suggest a new name/url for this. I was excited to make it but also not awake enough to be very creative about anything. OKAY WOoooo get excited