Today averaged about mediocre. This morning was pretty bad (although I did win the game Evan, James and I now play of “Guess what time Zach will show up to work today”). Sometimes I feel like I have a few bipolar colleagues and sometimes work goes by really slowly; when those two things combine, it’s not pretty. The afternoon was a lot better, though, and involved James getting a new high score in minesweeper (222 to beat Evan’s 288, you can imagine how many pictures we had to take to document that), Zach reminding us about the Bible story where Abraham went to sacrifice his son Jonah (don’t worry, I burst out laughing and then set him straight on who the son actually was), and Evan showing off his drawing abilities on our whiteboard by drawing a monkey in a cage (this was the cover of a book he’s reading and happened to copy, but there may have also been some underlying message to our superiors on how we feel in our little glass room). So though work can be exhausting and these boys definitely wear me out, the afternoon went by pretty quickly.
After work I headed to one of the malls about a block from Motel 168 to do some shopping, maybe get a manicure and have dinner. Mostly I needed time away from the scoundrels I spend the rest of the day with. (Oh, but before that, James and I went to the western supermarket near where we work to search for graham crackers. We found them, but didn’t feel like they were worth the ridiculous 65 quai they were going for so bought goldfish instead). Anyway, my shopping trip in a typical Shanghai mall was pretty revolting. I guess I hadn’t actually looked around a non-touristy mall too closely yet, but now that I have I am indeed concerned for Asian fashion. I think I found one thing that I would not have been ashamed to be seen wearing. If that’s a little harsh, well, it’s the truth. My very favorite part of shopping in China, though, is seeing shirts with phrases on words in English on them. China has this thing where they just love putting English words on their clothing items, no matter if the words make sense or not (and they usually don’t). Kind of like with asset management companies, I just do not see why it would be so hard to hire a native English speaker to proofread what you put on your clothing (or company website). The phrase “You can reach your dreams you if only believe” in confident, pink letters will surely mark you as a little clueless and result in me never taking you seriously.
But to balance this post’s bashing of Chinese style, I will say that last night I found these adorable cookies called “Baby Panda Biscuits” that are like teddy grahams but probably three times more delicious and cute. I plan on filling my suitcase with them when I come home just to prove it to you all. "
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