I Gotta Pack

Diego and I are getting up at 4:50 am, China time. Lucky we're not from China, or this would be a very difficult task. For us it will a leisurely stroll out of bed around 2 pm. We're going to the World Expo! Woohoo!

Friday was a pretty good day. Breakfast. Love it. [See picture.] I turned in the project I have worked on for the past couple of days. It was received well, both of my bosses liked it, and they said they were impressed I was able to turn out such a professional-looking report in so short a time.

Today I built a bike frame in Solidworks to celebrate finishing my report. I had been trying to make one while at USC, but I failed. Today, I learned a new feature which made it much easier. Woohoo! Now I can design a fork, and tires, and a little Solidworks man, and make it animated, and have so much 3D modeling fun! If only I were joking. I'll probably do it, and I'll probably have fun. It's times like these which tell me I am indeed an engineer.


We stopped off at our favorite Chinese-Italian restaurant for dinner. I got a pizza for three dollars, followed by a bowl of rice and shrimp for two dollars and an Oreo milkshake for another three dollars. By now you must be thinking, three dollars for an Oreo milkshake! That's Silk Road robbery! (Like highway robbery, only in China.) I think it costs a lot to import the Oreo on top.

Diego and I went to the gym at Nanjing University tonight. On the way there we felt a tiny drizzle and Diego wanted to go back and grab an umbrella. I mocked him accordingly, and he opted instead to just choose a path covered by trees. On our way out of the gym, the rain had gotten slightly worse. And as we walked, it got A LOT worse. So that we were regularly stepping through puddles. We arrived back at the hotel soaked through. There was a large crowd of Chinese outside the hotel. They did not smile. And that made us smile.


Tonight we wanted to get three laundry bags for the next three days of laundry, so we wouldn't miss out on our allotted two pieces of laundry per day. Diego just got it cleared up, after about an hour of confusion. First there was a giggling young Chinese lady in our room, who summoned an older grumpy Chinese lady. They played their respective parts well. The younger lady giggled and the older lady grumbled in Chinese. Neither of them understood our predicament in English (even when we said it to them really loud like four times, geez), so Diego had to go down to the front desk and he got it all sorted.

We're going to Shanghai tomorrow! And I Gotta Pack!!!!! (This is like the part in lame movies or books, or blogs I guess, where the main character says the title of the show or book or blog post and everybody goes, 'Oh, I get it, that's the title,' but really they're just annoyed. I'm glad we could share this moment.)