November 28, 2007

I can officially say that no matter what city I live in or the friends I make I am always planning something….. and the past two weeks have been no exception. The two weeks also resulted in me sleeping for 11.5 hours in one night…which if you know me RARELY happens…..

NETWORKING EVENT

There was a networking event held at Jean George, one of Shanghai’s chichiest restaurants. The mixer/networking event was sponsored by Berkeley, MIT, UPenn, and Harvard. There were a lot of Asian Americans but mostly anyone who had graduated from some college or university in the states. I met up with a friend at the event so I didn’t really network but as I was walking around I bumped into a guy I had met at a CAL event. He introduced me to one of his friends. And I was like, “What university did you attend?” And he was like, “Well actually I didn’t attend a university, it wasn’t my thing”… Okay I think EVERY single person reading this went to a college or university. I am not saying you have to attend a college or university to be smart or rich …whatever…but when you are attending a networking event that is titled, “ All University Mixer” and you make some kind of snotty comment that college isn’t “ your thing” .. well I just gave him the weirdest look like… “Umm what are you doing here?”….

BIRTHDAY PARTY
Well my friend had said she wanted to go KTVing for her birthday. AKA karaoke with your own private room. The pictures are posted on facebook. Anyways so over gchat I am asking her where am suppose to meet up with her. And she said she didn’t know because she said our mutual friend was picking the venue. At the same time I am on gchat I contact mutual friend. Mutual friend then states he thought I was taking care of it. And I state to mutual friend that I thought the birthday girl was planning it. And he makes a comment about, “Who plans their own birthday?” And I was thinking …..hmmm me and like most people I know.
So well we decided we would do a pre-party at mutual friend’s apartment for the birthday girl. I bought a cappuccino cake. The only thing with buying a cake is that there’s no writing on the cake!!! So I bought candles that spelt out Happy Birthday! At midnight, when it was her actual birthday, we brought out the cake and played the Happy Birthday song by Stevie Wonder. It was an almost perfect birthday celebration except that I forgot to get a big group picture of the birthday girl and all the people there =(….oh well.
After cake cutting we went to KTVing… aka karaoke in your own private room. We went to a place a friend of mine suggested and well the price included an all you can eat buffet. I can’t tell you exactly how much the price was because well I had heard 98 RMB a person but then I heard 68 RMB a person. I sang my favorite karaoke song….. “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond….but no one else really knew it. Well as people were leaving I decided to tell everyone to put in 200 RMB. Well hmmm by like 4:00 am it was time to go home. And as I was playing hostess along with my friend, well we got the bill and compared it to how much we had….well hmm we ended up having over 1000 RMB leftover. So the cake and alcohol ended up being paid for. THIS USALLY NEVER HAPPENS!!!! Whenever you’re the hostess you end up forking like almost half the bill sometimes. I was so happy!!!!


THANKSGIVING

Well from facebook you can look at pictures to see that I celebrated Thanksgiving three times.

Thanksgiving #1 : Thanksgiving day at Moon River. There were about ten of us, which was nice except there was some girl who when she was leaving was like, “I know you’re Suda. I just wanted to introduce myself.” And I was like…. “Okay. Bye.”…Ummm please introduce yourself at the beginning of a meal not as you’re walking out!!. She was also this girl who asked for extra turkey skin. The food was well…. Hmm being able to have “Thanksgiving” esque foods on Thanksgiving Day in China, well you can’t complain too much.

Thanksgiving #2: Well my friend took half a day off from work and I didn’t have work so we went grocery shopping the next day. Grocery shopping started off with me thinking I was going to the City Shoppe ( grocery store with western products) I had been to a week earlier, but since there were two City Shoppes on HuiHai Lu ( a huge shopping street) we ended up at the one on the other end of the street. However during the walk of confusion/frustration/ me having have a bad sense of direction…. my friend called to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving and it was so nice to hear a familiar voice. Well we bought stuff and then went back to my friend’s apartment, then walked to Carrefour bought more stuff, then took a cab to his place again, and then we went to another grocery store but decided to get food before that. Food being CPK- ….yep that CPK. California Pizza Kitchen. They have my favorite salad but they don’t put blue cheese on it = (.

Well the next day I taught in the morning and met up with my friend to help cook Thanksgiving dinner for ten people total. We had the dinner at our friend’s apartment. Which with is own bathroom that has Jacuzzi bathtub, tv, two toiletes and two sinks and I think a shower….well you can just guess how nice the apartment is….oh wait did I mention his private elevator? Anyways the important thing about his apartment is that he has an oven!!!! Most apartments in Shanghai do not have ovens. Well I was the little assistant for about five hours. Meaning I shredded cheese, peeled potatoes, made some biscuits, decorated a pie, cut up squash and pumpkin… and maybe a few other things.

Thanksgiving #3: This was with people from my program. I taught all day Sunday and then got off of work around 6 but we didn’t eat until 8!!!

Sunday night = The past two weeks of three Thanksgivings, one birthday party and KTVing, one night of all you can eat and drink sushi, one EPWS networking think tank event, one goodbye for a month salsa dancing, and ohhhh yes did I mention helping to plan the like half of those events almost….. me sleeping for 11.5 hours.

“IF YOU LEAVE ME NOW, YOU’LL TAKE AWAY THE BIGGEST PART OF ME….. “- Chicago

On Monday and Wednesday nights when I teach there are two other Americans who teach at the center. Justin went to school in the Bay Area and grew up there and in Newport Beach so of course we bonded. HAHA. Anyways he came and told me that he was moving to Beijing with his girlfriend. The first thing I said to him as I was looking at a calendar was, “Please don’t tell me you’re leaving this weekend or like the 16th -20th. And he said… “Yes I am.” I gave him my sad face and said that I wish he wasn’t leaving. He’s been in Shanghai for a year and half and was a part of the program last year. Guess who I’ll be visiting when I’m in Beijing Well the reason I mention those dates to him were because four of my friends are going to their respective countries, three Americans and one Costa Rican for the holidays. Well the good thing about the friends going back to the states is that I’ll be shipping stuff to their places. But really……. what do you get as a combination Christmas gift/ moving away present?

“YESTERDAY ALL MY TROUBLES SEEM SO FAR AWAY” – The Beatles
Sometimes I’ll randomly sing…..at random times. On Sunday as my kids were packing up I started to sing “Yesterday” by the Beatles…and this cute little six year old started to sing with me. How in the world would he know that song? Well I told my co-teacher to take a picture of me and him and of course he got all embarrassed but we were able to take one semi picture together.