These three weeks have been chaotic as ever. It's all a blur now that it's over. Only thing I remember is this video of harold and kumar of all things. It gave me hope =D haha.
Looking back I am sorta disappointed in myself. I'm too easily distracted as always and I'm never exactly realistic. Going to sleep at 2 and expecting myself to wake up early on a weekend. My old roommate had the remarkable ability to go to sleep at 11pm no matter how much work he finished. Seeing as it's already 1am, I am far from mastering that ability.
It feels unbelievably better now. "A late night, a cup of coffee, music playing, no work at all..."
Right. Before I give up on this thing for good. Gotta write something
Update on my life?
College is busy. Sophomore year is pretty much suffer-more year. I came in thinking I could do more than just school work and classes. Started to read books outside class. But eventually the entire attitude fell out. Too busy. Maybe one day I'll restart that...yeah
Right now I want to major in civil engineering with a minor in architecture. It's pretty interesting so far. One minute I'm in a studio where people are discussing transformations, fields, sites, and line weights and the next I'm in a engineering lab where people are dictating numbers, figures, deformations, and forces. It feels weird, but it's the awesome kind of weird.
So my last post on China was very long, which made me hesitant about posting this, another post on China, this time on food.
But as a good Anthony Bourdain fan, I feel a need to promote awesome food that may not be in people's comfort zone. A lot of the stuff I liked best were very simple in preparation. Chop, boil/grill, and serve.
One time, my uncle took me to a fish farm near Beijing. Restaurants nearby use the fish in their dishes.
Holy shit. Best piece of grilled fish I have ever had, hands down. So good I couldn't help but eat half before taking a photo. The two yellow buns (I really can't find better words for those =D) on the side are corn meal filled with wild plants.
For a meat lover like myself, this was pretty damn good. And that's saying a lot since it had no cilantro.
Another weekend, my uncle took us out again, this time for Beijing street food.
Shredded cow stomach, no seasoning just boiled to well done. Sauce on the side. Think hot pot but done for you.
Chopped lamb head. Same preparation. Slightly different but equally awesome taste.
The more “normal” stuff that I had: lamb kabobs and beef noodles. Simple but hellz-yea-amazing
Looking back I have to say a lot of the stuff did not look too appetizing. But in the words of Bourdain, “You only live once.” Just go for it, you never know how it's gonna taste till it's in your mouth. It was all good for me the whole way through.
I'm writing this blog post on Word. It's July 7th, 2009. But this post will probably be posted sometime in August. And that's because in China, Blogger is blocked. So instead of waiting till the end of my vacation to share what happened under serious amounts of jet lag, I write this now. This also means that I haven't been able to catch up on some of your interesting stories on blogger. Though I do get xanga subscription digests by email. And those have been somewhat interesting. You may know who you are. ;)
Overall, my stay in China was far more than what I expected. I'm pretty sure I'll feel great every time I look back at this trip.
Stuff I did:
Stayed inside my uncle's house for 7 days: As required by swine flu regulations. I also had to report my body temperature for that time. Kind of excessive actually. It's not like I could have crossed a street with the jet lag I had, a task that's the equivalent of playing Frogger with your life.
Civil Engineering Tour: Hells yeah, this was a good 10 day trip.
Internship at Beijing Institute of Architecture Design (BIAD): Worked there after the tour.
Food!: Had a lot of variety of good eats while I stayed. From KFC and Pizza Hut to Cow stomach and Sheep Head. Tasty q:
Here are the highlights of the tour. I'll go into the food later =D
First stop of the tour, Beijing.
Tian An Men Square. A place of controversy, but one thing's for sure: That's one big ass flag pole.
Forbidden City. It's size makes MTV cribs look like Barbie doll houses.
Commune by the Great Wall. Basically 10 Asian architects were invited to design their own villa. Pretty cool places.
The Great Wall. This section was intentionally left unmaintained. I kinda like the unkempt look of it all.
The Water Cube was surreal almost. The Bird's Nest was pretty big. Ritchie Kwan's reaction: “Of course you guys would visit a hunk of metal”
Next on our tour, we went Xian. On the train ride there...
Think beer pong except with a shoe and a pack of gum. Oh and you still get to drink beer.
Countryside. I actually did not expect that we'd go to a place like this. Pleasant surprise
LOUD NOISES aside, KTV twas fun.
Terra Cotta Warriors. Most of them are actually still covered, as this is the best preservation method. Otherwise they lose their paint and end up like the ones on the top.
As with all visits to foreign countries, a photo displaying perfect English grammar is required. Thanks the cooperation. (Lampoonery aside, most of the travel guides spoke great English)
We then flew to Yi chang. The place is sorta remote. And by sorta, I mean very. Not a lot of people or traffic, and absolutely no karaoke bars in sight.
The spectacular view outside the hotel.
The Three Gorges Dam
Mr. Wang, one of the chief engineers of the project. Pretty cool guy.
“Damn! That's one big dam...ok let's go to Shanghai”
Night skyline. We were here a little early, so some of the buildings didn't light up yet
Visited Tongji University. Had some interesting conversations with the CivE grad students.
TV Tower, Shanghai World Financial Center, and Jin Mao Tower.
The glass balcony on the top. A great way to cure height phobia?
Here's the elevator to the top of the SWFC. Portal?
Maglev Train, which transported us to Pudong Airport in exactly 7 minutes and 20 seconds.
Awesome people to go on tour with. Good times.
Though I wish we stayed in Shanghai a lot longer. Lots of interesting architecture. I shall return. With a tripod. And a local friend who would be willing to help me? Cause I can't speak Shanghainese. Let alone enough Mandarin. xD
It's been a while since I've written in this blog. College has definitely kept me busy. Before going to college I didn't have many expectations on what it was going to be like. I definitely knew it was going to be fun. But I also expected that academics were going to be difficult.
During my previous summer of watching youtube videos, however, I came across this clip that gave me some great encouragement and useful advice. [link]
After watching this, I thought “Man. Bourdain is such a...such a rocker. He travels the world and dares to eat fermented tofu, cobra heart, pig intestines, anything that the local people consider food. Even when he works in the kitchen, he endures, fights it out, rocks on.” (insert electric guitar strum here) Right then I believed that that was how I was going to do things in college.
After about a month into college, I made many friends who felt the same, at least when they were out partying or sledding on stolen dining hall trays. They would eat things they've never eaten before. Drink till they start enjoying massages by strangers. Enjoy life like there's no tomorrow.
When it came to academics though, my friends often complained. About getting absolutely raped by tests, prelims, and midterms that were unbelievably difficult or curved to a B. Time and time again I would hear something along the lines of “Success is now defined as how well you do against others in the class.” I couldn't blame them. College is hard. But I had my own opinions back then.
I thought, “No worries. A true rocker never fears, even in academics. I'm not gonna stress over stupid grade curves or how difficult other people say the test is gonna be. I'm gonna rock on and not get intimidated.” So I studied hard, aimed for an A+, and yada yada I aced my first few tests. I thought to myself, “Yeah! Be a rocker, that's what I'm gonna do. It'll all work out just like it did just now.”
Besides these little bouts of arrogance, there was nothing else wrong with what happened. I “rocked on” and succeeded. But little did I know that I had yet to really prove myself as a rocker.
Then one midnight I found myself with two research papers due the next day, both of which were far from finished. I'm not here to brag about workload but this had me freaking out. I heard a voice saying “Be a rocker. Rock on!”
And then I thought “pffft. Fuck that. That whole bullshit about 'rocking out' is easier said than done. How the hell am I going to succeed. I'm fucked...and I'm going crazy too with all these voices.” I abandoned this whole idea of being a rocker. It didn't matter whether I was or wasn't one, I just started working. Eventually both papers were finished. I was muttering curses under my breath the entire time, exhausted, at my limits.
Looking back at this moment though, I have to say that even though I “abandoned” the idea, I was still a rocker. To quote again from Bourdain's clip, “You have to keep swimming and swimming and swimming upstream... It's kinda like any high stress situation. You're not aware of what you're doing, you're just doing it.”
What being a rocker really means is simply acting. When you're partying and enjoying yourself, this seems almost second nature. Have another shot. Don't think just take it. Granted it can lead to some mistakes...but those can be avoided if you're smart and lucky enough.
It's more difficult to see and do in academics. You're not exactly having the time of your life when you are studying. If you do have time of your life, then you need to get a life. The good news is, it's no different from when you are enjoying yourself. Youjust have to act.
If any of my friends ever had the patience to read this far into my post, I hope they at least take this lesson from it. Don't worry about the mountains of work. Don't worry about tomorrow. And certainly don't give a damn about that stupid curve. Already, I've seen my friends in situations like the one I had. 2 papers and a textbook review due the next day. 3 finals in 3 consecutive days.
I know I'll definitely be facing some worse situations throughout the rest of college. Three research papers? Four and a project? I can't tell what it will be. I'm probably going to be eating the very words I'm typing. But for now, I'll say it. I'm going to be ready and rock on. And I hope my friends will too.
At this point, though, some of them would probably be thinking, “Daniel....you need to get laid. This entire post is about working hard. You never said you went to a party.” OK OK, I probably should go to college parties for once, so that I'm not so hypocritical on the partying parts of this blog post. =D
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