life is good

“stefAnnie, i want to take you out to lunch today.” president of company says. “HOT food.”

“hot?” i’m thinking maybe it’s really warm, or popular food. ‘hot’ in a Paris Hilton kind of way.

“very spicy. the only real chinese food is spicy food.”

at this point my face must have crumpled in fear or something because he started telling me that i had to try it whether i liked it or not.

somewhere in between me dodging the chili peppers and tearing up and sweating, the boss was promted to tell me the following story:

‘in the 80s i worked in tanzania. my boss worked for the embassy there, - he was from Hunan province. he would not eat anything unless there were red peppers on it. i used to be like you. i used to hate spicy foods. but when your boss likes it, you learn to like it.’ 

he piled my plate with more perfectly good tofu covered in chili peppers and another spice that in english translates to ‘alarming seed’. it’s quite alarming.

in the end i survived. it was no haiti part deux, where my best friends became a bucket and the bathroom floor. and i got to hear that and many other great stories slash advice from the president. in the end it was quite lovely.

we talked and he said that if i was staying til the 26th he would take me to a restaurant that specializes in food from the Fujian province - which is where i’ll be living til next year. he’s travelling from today until the earlier date that i would leave, and while that sounds like a great 2 hours, the extra 4 days of coming to the office that it would require don’t seem to make it worthwhile.

also i’ll have 6 months to eat this type of food. okay fine, 5.

on a similar note i am sooooo soooo happy i’m not studying/living in Hunan or Sichuan Provinces.

So the food is fabulous. still. What’s not quite as fabulous, is having everyone stare at you when you eat. or do anything. Even when i’m with other Shanghainese ppl i get stares.

so i started cancelling on the italian b/c i’d kind of rather sleep. anyway.

so at the suggestion of emily (and b/c i love massages) i went to get a ‘chinese massage’ yesterday. she recommended this place, but it was in Puxi, which isn’t far but i might’ve been up past my bedtime of 9pm had i gone. so i said that i’d find one by me and go to Puxi w/ her another time. i asked the women at the desk in the hotel where to go, and i said ‘massage’ in english, so they wrote down an address and i went there.

idk if saying ‘massage’ instead of ‘an mo’ changes the meaning, or if this was like the ‘there’s a pool on the roof’ type of initiation thing, but it was a ‘men’s only’ (see also: nasty) ‘massage’ place. the guys at the front door had a blast trying to explain this to me.

so i went back near the hotel to get dinner, giving up on the massage thing, when i realized that next to the place i eat there’s a massage place. a really really sketchy looking one. but since the nasty one looked really clean and high-class, i’m thinking sketchy is the way to go.

i go in and a little old man - literally, about 2 feet shorter than me and freaking old, took me upstairs. i was thinking that if this was the nasty kind of massage place, they must be freaks.

so it turns out to be the good kind of massage place and the old man starts talking to me in chinese.

it was great in the end, and i’m more than mildly in love with this old man, but everytime he touched my legs, ass, or most other parts of my body, i started hysterically laughing. and idk how to say ‘tickle’ in chinese, so it was really
hard to explain. this was awkward not only for the obvious reasons, but also b/c the massage parlors here are big rooms where everyone lays together. so there were about 20 other chinese people wondering what the hell was wrong w/ me as well. in the end he flipped me over on to my sides and touched my ribs. oh man.

so i’m not saying i’d never do it again. i think i’ll do it many more times, esp since it’s about $5/hour, but i might just go w/ emily next time. whenever i do things w/ her they work out great. whenever i think i can just handle things on my own i find myself in the most awkward situations of my little brown life.

so you’d think shanghai’s such a big city - it’s probably like NYC or at least advanced and used to foreigners, etc. at least that’s what i thought. and i was sooo wrong.
everyone stares. and when there’s another white person, they attack. i’m wondering if after a few weeks here i’ll turn into an attacker.. it’s b/c i (and the attackers) live in Pudong, which is a business district, which especially has never seen a white person before. so when there is a white person on the streets, it’s an exciting moment.
anyway.

alright well i’m going to get back to ‘work’. aka: researching nepal. it’s all i’ve done
for the past 3 days. by choice.

i was looking at cambodia, vietnam, and nepal for travel after xiamen/before G. oh i’m so not ‘going back to work’ yet. so i looked at all of them and fell in fucking love with nepal. i’m pretty sure cambodia’s out. and Maoist insurgence aside, nepal’s really safe. they have trekking to everest (just the base i’m not crazy. slash stupid.) and classes
where you can learn to teach yoga. and about a million other things that sound amazing. i’m thinking since i only have 10 days max b/f i go see G, the trekking would be my choice b/t all of them.

and that’s another thing. G. this whole distance thing isn’t as much fun as i thought it would be. -some distance is lovely. but i’m thinking a month tops, especially when you can’t really even talk on the phone. i’m just not happy w/ it all right now.

and there are no real reasons for that, i just decide sometimes that i don’t like him. and i realize that he’s somewhere in the sahara right now, exploring egypt and whatever, but show a sister some love. 2 emails a week isn’t going to do it. but neither’s 10.. wow i would NEVER want to date me. 

alright i’m gonna go for real this time. it’s my 10am ‘make tea and walk around’ break. if i waste at least 15 minutes of every hour wandering, peeing, making tea, going to the watercooler, etc. time goes by a lot faster.
no complaints really though - work is good. i do whatever i want, and i can keep myself entertained…

went out w/ F last night. and at the risk of losing my only english-speaking friend here, talked about how excited i was to see the nanpengyou in december. think it was fine. last night was nice and all but just made me miss the NPY. the distance thing isn’t as much fun as it sounds..

anyway.
so good news - i’m leaning away from cambodia, which everyone thinks is unsafe (pol
pot’s the only thing ppl can think of when it comes to cambodia..), and really really
leaning twds: Nepal!! where there perhaps are some Maoist insurgencies, but no one who
can’t be paid off for less than 10$. plus i heard they give you a receipt for
bribes/forced “donations”. -tax refund?? 

all i have to do now, is decide between trekking for a week, or doing and learning to teach
yoga for a week. i want to do both. really badly. but if i want to make it to I’s by my
bday and such i’m only going to have around 10 days.. i think i’m going to go w/
trekking. it’s cheaper too. and character building. both are dirt cheap. if you can
afford to get to this part of the world, you can live like a king once you’re here.
(shanghai not included) 

hmm..maybe i should think more about xiamen and the tests i have
coming up before i start planning the fun time? maybe not.

there are also ‘escorts’ for the weekends. girls if i want to go shopping, guys to help me get a cell phone. etc.

really it’s just the honesty of the situation that’s embarrassing. because of the whole Beirut situation, i arrived here late, with little more than 3 weeks to spend at this ‘internship’. this changed some things, ie: my living situation switched to a business hotel, and my ‘working’ here is even less meaningful than before.

however, even if i had been here a few weeks earlier, it would be the same thing. these people said yes to letting me ‘work’ here as a favor. i get to learn about the company, use a computer, and really just get shown around shanghai and helped to settle in. and eat. and walk.

the uncomfortable difference is that they’re not even pretending that i do anything useful for the company, whereas other places would have me file or do some dirty work to earn whatever resume reference or free lunch i got there.

well. i’ll show them. i’ll earn my free lunch. i’m going to do something productive for this company before i go. i have a few weeks to work on this one. it’ll happen.

so it looks like me and you blog, are going to have a lot of time together over the next 2 weeks.

it just occured to me that if my internship ends in 2 weeks, that school starts in 2 weeks. mildly upsetting. see also: exciting and intimidating.

So jet lag is great. I got up at 3:45am today. I’m at work now and have been awake for 6 hours. I did some yoga. I took a walk. I talked to locals (luckily a lot of people are up early). I watched the news. I watched a documentary on Thailand that I’ve seen 7 times. I took another walk. I made oatmeal. Read some of the dictionary. etc etc. It’s been a long day.

Really I’d like to: get a cell phone. Change money. Buy a coffee. Buy a tourism book. But they keep telling me that I can do that all in the office building and to wait and that P will help me. But there are communication issues.
For example: yesterday I wrote that ‘lunch’ would be with ‘the other young people’, as this is what I was told. What I didn’t know, was that ‘lunch’ is dinner. I’m not sure what lunch lunch is, but yesterday I ate dinner lunch with ‘the other young people’ after work.

It turns out Chinese ‘fast food’, is a social experience where you get together and share every dish. it also comes with fresh watermelon and miso soup. ‘fast food’ here gets its name literally for being fast. it’s doesn’t seem like the artery-clogging big mac and fries that is my home.

I hate being asked every time if I’m shocked that Chinese food here is soo amazingly different than in the States. I’m not. I’ve been eating the good stuff at E’s house since age 6. Thing is, the Chinese ‘fast food’ main dishes here, are pretty much the same as what’s served in the States. But I go along with things.

Between the awkwardness of first meetings and the langauge barriers on both sides, there have been a few uncomfortable situations. and I’m sure will be many more. The good-for-you kind of uncomfortable though.

I tried again with the ‘yea i have siblings. and you?’ and I got a yes. from a 26-year old. so I don’t understand how this one child policy works. A lot of ppl here have more than one child.. 

i know - SO MUCH less - than i thought i knew.

So. I get up. I get clean and look nice. I come in to the office. and I’m not sure what’s going on. I know I have to wait for the other intern to leave before I get a real desk/computer/etc, but i’m not positive I’ll be getting work then.. I really wish I could do something helpful here, but with such little time I understand it’s hardly worth the effort. Well, whatever it is that I will spend the next 8 hours doing here at the office, I will do it while looking very professional.

Ohhh I’m so excited to eat tonight. btw, I’m never travelling without at least a 2 week supply of Quaker oats. ever again.
other places it saves money. here food costs 25 cents, but at the hours i’m keeping - nothing’s open around me. All you need is hot water. frickin wonder food.

alright. plan: …..go to the restroom. then make some tea. then write characters over and over and read b/c i brought my workbook and a bunch of articles with me today. prepared for some free time.  

I know most internships that ppl get in college are spent on myspace, checking emails, chatting, looking out windows, etc., but if I’m not doing anything on Monday, I’m going to suggest a few jobs that I could do. If there’s still nothing, I’m going to start cleaning things. or something productive.
 
Yesterday I read a magazine - “Synthetic Fiber in China”. Fascinating things this company does. I also read about a project they have here making Ethanol. The slogan is “start with corn, end up with drinking grade ethanol!”. The article makes it sound so exciting. But then I look around the office and nobody looks that excited..

I’m not gonna lie, my last internship was a little bit more exciting. A bit less safe maybe, but i guess that’s a tradeoff.

Okay I’m gonna go now for real.
Shanghai is beautiful.

continuing with the summer of spoiled stephanie, i am now working in an office in shanghai, china. i have a ‘driver’. and amazing food.

getting picked up at the airport was an experience. after 24 hours of travel and about 3 days without sleep, i was feeling mildly cracked out to say the least. a girl holding a sign for “miss stephanie” met me at the exit and then called the driver to meet us. thankfully i sat in the back to give the girl, ‘emily’, a secretary for the company the front seat. i later realized that when you have a driver, no one sits in the front seat.

emily asks me the usual questions and when we get to ‘do you have brothers or sisters’ i answer ‘one older sister. what about you?’. china has a one child policy. the answer to this question, which everyone from guy on plane to president of company will ask me, is going to be ‘no’. followed up with an explanation containing the words ‘birth control’.

i’m not sure when they started enforcing this law though, but even if the older generations have siblings, i don’t care enough to risk asking. i’ve never understood that question in any language, except as an absolute last resort in small talk. just above ‘do you have any pets’ but far below anything important slash interesting.   

the people here as far as i have seen are spectacular. the language barrier strips away most politeness, which people use on instict anyway, and you’re left with: “aren’t you impressed by the view from my office?” ”you probably don’t fit into the clothes here” and other blunt remarks or questions that, if translated to chinese would be perfectly polite and modest.

like any other ‘internships’ and a lot of jobs that i’ve had, i am unsure of what i’m actually doing here. i don’t get a real computer/desk until monday, and perhaps that’s when i get work as well. i was looking at weeks of filing and other just as exciting ‘administratve tasks’, but the boss sat me down with a copy of company policies and a computer saying, ‘read this. and you can talk to your friends or whatever on that’.

i follow orders. especially on day one. and so i chose ‘or whatever’ and decided to update my lonely blog.

having a computer to do ‘whatever’ on is a luxury. the internship in beirut did not give good vibes about doing ‘whatever’ on their computers. you could have msn and email windows open and get away with it, but you’d better be writing and researching like crazy with most of your time. when i did write personal emails or read things completely unrelated to work, ie health articles - one of my more time-consuming vices, i’d use the computer in the conference room.

the conference room computer was slow. the mouse sucked. and the AC was either nonexistant or set on freezing. but it was privacy. some peace in an office full of frenzy, gossip, shouting, story-stealing, deadlines, stress, and usually food.

the only problem was that most days there were meetings. this was good because i never missed a meeting (minus meeting #1), and bad because i’d be emailing and whatnot when 3 editors walked in.

anyway. so here i guess i feel less obligated to hide my idle time on the computer. which is nice. also because the only internet access within walking distance to where i’m staying is a sketchy sketchy joint. it has 2 computers and from what i can tell about 20 employees. it’s constantly blasting michael jackson classics and everyone stares at you while you check your email. it’s a sweaty sweaty place. not to mention i’m not even sure that it’s an ‘internet cafe’ at all - i just saw ‘welcome’ on the door, computers in the corner, and made myself at home.

when i go to pay..idk who, a group of people look at each other and say numbers in chinese. one finally looks to me and repeats one of those numbers, this time ‘er yuan’ which is two, and i hand him some money and leave.

this translates to 25 cents. which is what most of the china i’ll be seeing should be like. the places that my hosts/bosses are recommending are a lot more expensive. and since i’m staying in a business hotel, most of the places immediately surrounding me have higher prices. luckily the internet place is a 20 minute walk away.

i ate lunch today at the restaurant down the road from my hotel, where Yang Xiansheng told me to go. I got an absolutely amazing meal of Japanese mushrooms, pear soup, undetermined reddish dish, and bai cai - which is possibly my favorite food, for what would be considered cheap in the states. with this, i got jasmine green tea and fresh carrot juice - all for about $7. While this is cheap by US standards, it’s not something that i could do everyday in any country. 

by the internet place there’re some restaurants that are a whole lot cheaper. i’m mildly worried for my fragile fragile digestive system, but figure destroying it once again is inevitable, and as soon as it recovers from haiti i’m eating there. until then i’m covered, as i brought oatmeal - yes, quaker oatmeal, for breakfasts, will be eating with the ‘other young people’ for lunch at the office, and with Yang Xiansheng and wife in the evening. i’m not sure if this is going to be a regular thing or what will end up happening, but i’m covered for the majority of the next 2 weeks anyway.         

oh food. i am SO EXCITED to eat. for the next 6 months. and when my stomach rejects all this eating, i will return to my diet of quaker oats and bananas until recovered.

so i’m unsure of a lot of things right now because of the language barriers. - i understood a surprising amount at the restaurant - which i owe half to ev and family for food names, and half to NC public education for grammar. and i get to use my chinese there which is great. i can also tell when people are talking about me and most of what they’re saying. also great. and as for that problem where everyone wants to practice english with you - haven’t encountered that one yet. once people find out i know any bits of chinese at all, they’re speaking to me as if i’m native. at school we used to complain when laoshi#4 spoke way too quickly, but now i realize he was taking it easy on us. ev’s family never spoke this fast..but they always shout what they’re saying so maybe that slows them down.

anyway.

so i thought that my time in shanghai would be a lonely time. but it’s day 2 and i’ve met so many people. from guy on plane to secretary with fake name - there are people all over around my age who have made an effort to get to know me slash get my number. which in this case is an email address.  

alright well i have some whatever to do on the computer and an employee manual to read.  

so the food - is sooo good. i ate about 55 servings of hummus two
days ago - it was also all i ate that day, but i made up for it
yesterday.

so ‘free time’ is kind of sparce - not that that’s a complaint. we work
mon-fri pretty much all day, and then on weekends i’m covering stories
for the mostpart. but i love it. and i have a free day (i think) so
we’re probably going to go to the south. touristy things aren’t my
favorite, but i think it’ll be great to just see a different part of
lebanon.

so world cup - ppl here are mostly for italy. guy’s for
france and we’ve been betting on the games (see also: one poor
unsuspecting lbg has been getting hustled). personally i wanted
portugal to win, and now care a bit less. but it’s still fun.

this place has amazing weather. except that i’m cold a lot - no one told me the mideast was
cold?

so. here’s the rundown:

holy yesterday. so i get up around 6am - well, that’s a lie, 7 - but
was supposed to be up at 6, to cover a “cheese story”, which i’m
looking forward to, not only b/c cheese is possibly my favorite food,
but also b/c my last story was about an international kite festival
(made front page!!), but yea was the least exciting.

these stories are all an illusion though - when they tell you about
them. you think ‘kite festival? really?’ but then it turns out to be
about japanese-lebanese relations and a bunch of ambassadors giving
speeches - with kites in the background. ppl treat media really well
and i like being involved in it.

so i learn a little about this story b/f i go from google, b/c i’m
given very little info. and then a lot more about it in the car on the
way there. turns out, it’s about an NGO who works w/ microfinancing for
different groups in lebanon. (ACDI VOCA). we end up in the mountains,
where they’ve flown in a fiesty lesbian cheese expert from the US -
whose won several international cheese awards, to teach these villages
how to pasteurize so that they can sell their cheese to international
markets.

so i’m at work right now and am waiting for the IT guy to come help me
w/ some photos, so i’m gonna try to keep this short. honestly, i doubt
anyone would care if they saw me writing blog entries, but still.

so these villagers slaughter a lamb for us and we sit and eat raw lamb
liver, with raw lamb fat, and onions. i realize at this point everyone
except E or mr p (who would most likely be salivating), is vomitting. i
gagged a bit too, and now feel kind of queasy remembering, so let’s not
talk about it.

so we watch as this woman explains how to make cheese, we smoke hookah,
eat the biggest heaviest meal in the world, hike, play w/ the kids,
pee, visit other villages, and drink coffee and tea inside the
tent. and also do the story/interview/photos/etc.

we were there for 12 hours.

so this ‘cheese story’ ends up being the best one i’ve done yet, and
about a lot more than cheese. the ‘team’ we go with is amazing,
especially this one guy, who i spend the rest of the day with. he’s
like a 38-year-old kid. and sooo much fun.

so we leave the village and everyone’s exhausted. but this guy - Imad -
decides that we’re gonna stop in this town on the way back and play
bumper cars. he treats slash forces me, guy, the driver, and himself -
to not 1, but 2 amazing rounds of bumper cars. he rents out the entire
bumper car place for us 4, and we have a jolly good time. actually i
didn’t spend a cent yesterday, ate like nobody’s business, played
bumper cars, and ended the night with caviar and wine on a rooftop -
but we’ll get to that.

so after the bumper cars we go back to the office (that the town was
in), and then to another place, where we eat cherries in a park for
about 5 seconds. that’s not an intersting story.

anyway, so we’re on our way back to beirut and the team we’re with is
about 2 hours late for a microfinance reception. we all smell
disgustingly of lamb and dirt, and some sweat. so imad’s all about not
letting the party end - aka kidnapping some unsuspecting ‘reporters’
for a day, and by the end of the car ride me and imad have convinced
everyone (aka guy) to go to this reception thing with them.

we get there, and everyone’s dressed in amazing gowns. it’s on the
rooftop of a fancy hotel, open bar, free food, and 22 of iraq’s leaders
in microfinance.

i get my wine and then ‘mingle’, as that’s what i’m told to do. i
recover my appetite which i thought was lost forever with the lamb
(r.i.p.), and eat a plate or two of salmon and baklava.

i feel like some kind of royalty, as i’m talking to people who do what
i would love to do for a living, eating fancy food - which i choke down
even when it tastes like feet, and drinking free wine. and i also feel
a smidge out of place, b/c most ppl there don’t smell of lamb.

all the funding for these microfinancing projects comes from american
tax dollars. they were telling us that most ppl here recognize the
difference between the american gov’t and the american ppl, and some
even like the american ppl. i also asked the ppl what it was like to
live in iraq - since i’ll probably never know, which was also really
interesting.

oh and when we were in the mts - no women were allowed to sit in the
tent/smoke/eat with the men - they served everything and ate later on from the
leftovers in another room on the floor - but since me and girl#2 were
‘guests’, we were allowed to eat.

oh man, ok, glad i got that out of my system. so work here is
relatively lax, but there are deadlines. which make me panic like no
other. but i’ll get into that later. i’ve got to finish up this piece
really soon so i’m gonna go for now. sooo much more to ramble about. soo much to do here - you’d think as an intern i’d do nothing. or file. 

so it turns out i started tonight (friday night)- not monday. they called and had me cover some
car racing show. it was cool to have press passes and unlike the states (where i take
photos for the music company sometimes), a press pass here means that i could pretty much
just hop on one of the cars. no boundaries. 

i’m back to my state of intimidation. and as for the laidback atmosphere - it is, but there are deadlines. like, the driver will pick you up and drive you to this place - have pictures of it for me in the office by 10pm. and
surprise, you’re working this weekend. i like it though. not so proud of my first shots,
but they were decent, and i can take more on the closing day on sunday. also, while i was
there i got to go in the vip section (and basically wherever else..) and some
photographer for an auto magazine took all these photos of me. he had me pose and put my
hand against my face in a very arabic way and all this stuff. from what i think he said,
and from what i saw him doing, he was just taking pictures of young girls near cars. i am
proud to have been selected to participate in what is sure to be an extremely
intellectual and important article. ‘young girls hold hand to face and look coy around
fast cars’ - the start of a new career perhaps?

alright well i’m exhausted. perpetually. today was a really good day. oh - i have
business cards. contacts or ppl that i may interview, etc. - i ask them for their
business card and then hand one right back. ‘hi i’m stephanie preston from the daily
star’. i feel like i’m pretending to be a ‘grown-up’ with a real job and real clothes and
business cards. i feel like i’m pretending to be a photojournalist. but i like it. and
once i get into it i pretend it really well.

alright i’m out for real this time.

i just finished my interview and it was amazing. lot’s of honesty on
both sides - me about what experience i genuinely had, and her about
the limited resources (ie computers) they have available for interns,
etc etc, and we worked it out and they loved my photos and my resume
looked good and i start monday!!
it’s less intimidating when you’re completely honest.

i start at 1pm. not because it’s a half-day or anything. not because i
like sleeping in (i’ve been getting up at 6am each day and just reading
til the day starts) - but that’s just when things start
here. people don’t go to work until 12 or 1, they work late, eat
whenever, stay up late, etc. -the place i’m at seems like quite a lax
environment. which is good.

and this paper is intense. i read articles before i
came, but then i read today’s and some from earlier this week, and it’s
just..a very different perspective. information you would never hear in
US media. ever. some of it’s really tragic. and daily. daily tragedy.
good environment?

so the city of beirut is beautiful. and soo different from haiti (duh).
it’s nice to be in a place with infrastructure, a good economy, things
like student loans, health insurance, etc. it’s especially nice to fit
in. and fit in i do. you know how i’m ethnically ambiguous? spanish ppl
think i’m spanish, mrs chuang even thinks i look asian..etc. - well i
am lebanese. more lebanese than some lebanese girls. my nose and eyes
could be a bit bigger, and maybe a fuller body - but really,
everyone thinks i’m lebanese. and i like it.

anyway, i’ll wrap this up and write more later.

i could live well for 2 dollars a day here. easy. but i’m sure we’re
going to nicer places - not that 2 dollars doesn’t mean a fantastic
meal at a great place. the food here is amazing. but there are certain
places ‘buddha bar’ and an arabic dance club - that are on the agenda,
as well as some touring i’m sure, and that’ll up it a bit.

and the people i’ve met here are great - i just had an hour to kill
before the interview, so i went and bought some carrot juice. i was
looking at the menu b/c it was a fresh fruit place and seemed amazing,
but there were a bunch of things i didn’t understand. achta, labam,
etc. so everytime i asked what something was they made it for me in a
little sample and i tried it. i stopped asking after 3 or 4 things b/c
i didn’t wanna puch my luck. or ruin my appetite for my carrot juice,
but i feel like i’ll be back there everyday. i love this city.

as for turkey - my ticket is for the 16th, so i have 2 days and 2
nights there before i go to london and then ny. it’s only 11 dollars
per night, and as long as i eat at the hostel it’s either insanely
cheap or free. the only real thing that costs me money in istanbul is
transport to/from airport, and if i went out one night or something.
but i have no plans to do that. the mosque i want to see is free, the
beach and the grand bazaar don’t charge for admittance, and the owner
said he would give a half-day tour w/out charge.

he’s also offered to hire me if i would like to work there next summer.
he says that i seem like a genuine person, especially for an american,
and that i can give back to people in life. he thinks i have amazing
‘energie’. i know all this makes him sounds insane and kind of creepy,
but he’s really not. i promise. intuition says anyways.

alrighty. peace out cub scout.

Hello again - so the ‘i’ is back, as well as the apostrophe. as well as many many
arabic symbols that i don’t understand. i hate going to countries and not even being able
to say basic things in their language. it makes really little difference here though, b/c
in beirut EVERYONE speaks english. well, it’s like frenglarabic. the most common greeting
goes something like this: “hello, kifak, ca va?” - but i get to use french lot’s during
the day which i am loving.

i’ve read half of my new textbook so far - NOT the russia one, that one’s still somewhere
around chapter one. but the “among nations” book is really interesting. 

..how do you make “Russia in the 21st century” sound interesting to
kids who have less interest in that part of the world than most other things in life? -it’s not that though, it’s the writing. so densely academic. pedantic. BORING. wow i hope professor rosefielde never reads this, b/c he also wrote all of 4 of our textbooks for next semester.

anyway, so there’s been progress on both of those fronts and it’s only day 2. i was so
tired yesterday though that i slept through most of it and therefore also appreciated the
forced chinese language lessons that much less. but i do appreciate.

in an hour i meet with editor #2. i just left the office - i came early and read today’s
paper, to familiarize a bit. i’ve read articles before but it was good to read through the whole thing. in print.

i’m feeling really intimidated, but i think things will go really well. i’m going to
apply to work as a photographer - for many reasons - and also suggest that i could work
in the archives - going through past papers and picking out articles from that same day
in history - as well as filing and whatever dirty work they may have. they compensate -
well.. they recompensate - for transportation costs and very little more, but i’m not
going to ask for any money (pretty ballsy if i did) but i am asking that if i do a good
job that they allow me to put them as references - the main editor - and possibly be
willing to write a letter of recommendation should i need one for future work. i’ll see
how confident i feel about my work first though.

and the apt is amazing! it’s really nice w/ an outdoor terrace and bianca - a german muslim
roomate who speaks no english and seems very conservative. it’s located in a german
church - in manara, a muslim district. and in the same apt, on tuesdays, there is a
german child psychologist who rents the room right next to the bedroom i stay in, and
apparently random ppl come in and out. i find all of this to be hilarious.

there’s even a cleaning lady - she comes on tuesdays also and is apparently really nice.
i feel like she might like me least though b/c before i came the whole place was
spotless. it still is minus some clothes and books scattered about. nothing like the
messes i am capable of.

i’ll write more later. lot’s more. but if i don’t get off the compute now i’ll get
charged another 2,000. au revoir pour maintenant..