que pasa

I remember there was one time in college when we had this heat wave during the month of May.  And my roommate and I decided to have this little contest going in our small group where people could submit their entries to us by completing the sentence "It's so hot that..." and there would be a prize for the winner with the best line.

Not in college anymore, but it sure is ridiculously hot and humid right now in Shanghai.  Summer has really arrived.  It's nasty.   So anyway, here are few of my own entries this time round:

It's so hot that...

... even sitting down in my apartment makes me sweat

... 7-eleven has become a place to hang out (because of the cold a/c)

... people are walking around with grimaces on their faces

... I plan my walking route to the subway via the "coolest" path i.e. the places with the most a/c

... I keep moving so that I generate some draught to cool of my sweat

... at 6pm, it is already dark because of the grey clouds looming overhead and they look like they're gonna burst with rain

Well, irritatingly enough, ãlmost 3 hours later, it still hasn't poured like I thought it would.  Instead we're getting this nonsense super-light drizzle that is doing nothing to alleviate the humidity and heat.  LET IT POUR PLS!

Had dinner last night with a friend who's leaving in a month's time.  We've only hung out a couple of times but she lives near me and we have somewhat simliar profiles so maybe that helps us click better.

Normally we just chat about work, weekend trips, what we've been up to, random stuff.  But yesterday was different.  We went deeper into topics and shared about our perspectives on work, faith, and future direction.  In telling her about why Shanghai has been a good place for me to be in, I also realized certain changes in how I see things. 

Sometimes it's only when you try and articulate (either verbally or in writing) a summary of your past few months/years of life that you can actually observe changes that have happened.  Just thinking about it doesn't seem to be enough because articulation requires an organization of thoughts and that's what helps you piece things together.  Otherwise you miss it completely and that's such a pity because I think we can be amazed at what we discover. 

We were supposed to do this birthday suprise thing for one of our friends by pretending we had other plans instead of not going for dinner with him after our meeting (which he probably expected us to since it was his birthday on the same day).  But in the end his girlfriend called it off because he had already asked her to make sure everybody knew it was his birthday and get people together, so it wouldn't be a surprise afterall. 

Strangely enough, some people were rather irritated at the change of plans, or at how the change of plans was decided/executed.  I thought it was interesting, in a sad way, how some people take offence at these things.  When I spoke with the birthday boy, he mentioned he was aware of the original plans and said that he wasn't that big into birthday surprises for himself (but he wouldn't mind doing it for other people).

Guess we all see birthday surprises differently.  That while some people really appreciate the planning, some others just want to know that there will be people to celebrate their birthday with them.  Which makes sense because people only appreciate you care when you express love in a way they understand it, not in the way you do. 

Else, just be really obtuse and say "I love you." 

I was talking to a friend the other day, she was bothered by certain friendships which seemed to have turned awkward or estranged.  While I'm certainly not the guru on friendships, nor am I good at keeping in touch with friends, I have always felt that friends and friendship are Papa's gifts, i think i might have called it "chemistry" before. 

There's no particular reason why some people click.  And there's no particular reason why people change and don't click like they use to.  Friends move in and out of our lives, and as I live in this city where there's lots of people movement (my cell group here changes it's composition every 6 months or so), I am even more convinced that we are all put in places to meet certain people, do certain things and have certain conversations.  We are meant to be friends for a season.

For some, seasons are very short, like a month or two.  For others (who have become good friends), the seasons are long, spanning years and years.  For some, friends leave and then come back again.  It's just as well since we only have bandwidth to be good friends to x number of people.

So for as long as we are in "season", let's be a good friend to that person.

I am typig on my brand new wireless Logitech keyboard and using the wireless mouse that comes with it too.  Hadn't realized how small and cramped my laptop keyboard was until this gift came in.  My arms and fingers are more stretched out... IT FEELS GREAT!! 

The keyboard also has all these nifty hotkeys to help you be more efficient, especially if you're a hotkey kinda person (i.e. you don't like to keep moving your right hand from your keyboard to your mouse and you prefer to use combination of a few buttons on your keyboard to achieve the same results e.g. switching from one window to another, copying/pasting text etc.)

My keyboard even makes a little chirp when a new email comes in, or I press the Capslock button, cute.

Plus it looks really nice and it's not a noisy keyboard, you know, the one where it click-clacks with every button you press. 

It's not the ergonomic type... I never got into those keyboards.  I find my right and left index fingers crossing over to the "other side" every now end then.  I wonder if it's because I type funny. 

Anyway, I just read this review of the keyboard and mouse because I wanted to show you some pictures, I feel like I did Logictech an injustice with such a lame review.  But I really like it!

I've started making daily walks to the park nearby during my lunch hour to just sit and be quiet for a while.  Helps with thinking about work stuff, getting some sun/fresh air (if the air in shanghai can be considered that). 

The first time I went there a month ago, I was telling myself what a wonderful pitch it was for ultimate.  Grass is thick and soft, pitch is flat.  The only problem was the fact that it's kinda oddly shaped, and has these lamp posts in the middle (because there's this concrete walkway in the middle).  But I figured we could play around it.

To my dismay, last week, the powers-that-be have moved in these STUPID COWS.  I have no beef with cows (pun intended :p) but it's so sad to see these huge bronze cows sitting in the pitch.  They're killing the grass underneath them and they don't look that great anyway.  I know this park is called "Sculpture Park" but surely you don't have to put ugly sculptures in them and effectively prevent good utilization of the field? 

Anyway, here they are, well, 3 of 5 of them at least.

F and I decided to start throwing some frisbee.  We both kinda know how to play, but we're no where near professional.  Found a great pitch though. 

Thought it would be nice to get a group going, been trying for the past month and a half.  We really struggled at first, 5 people, 6.  Yesterday, we got 11.  YES! Finally some action :)

Great weather too.  Sunny.  Might start getting incredibly hot but then I'm just happy that we're getting this going.  Now if we can just hit 14 for a 7 aside game. 

A friend and I decided to go get us some culture so we went for a Beijing opera last Saturday.  The Chinese title is 狸猫换太子, translated as "Civet, A Substitute for a Prince" (I didn't do the translation). 

I was half expecting some rather wayang-ish opera (i.e. very ching-chong-chang type, Singaporeans will know what I mean) and suspected I would walk out halfway because I didn't understand.  Yet we went anyway because we got the cheapest seats and figured RMB 60 wasn't too much damage...  It turned out quite alright actually. 

Between the short English summaries at the beginning of each scene, a 25% understanding of what was actually being said/sung, and a 50% understanding of the Chinese subtitles projected on the sides of the stage, my friend and I managed to follow the entire play. 

I guess I could go for another one in a few months.  Heh.