Veni, vidi, bacchavi
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "William H Howard" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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12:22 am
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Pale blue seeping through the window.
Well, I've got some form of cold.
My glands are swollen, I keep sneezing, my nose is dripping like a tap.
I didn't really leave the house today, it was raining, and Shanghai in the rain isn't the best vibe ever to wander around in. I have the distinct impression that the rain will coat me in polluted gunk.
I've been playing Spore, in Chinese, it turns out to be mostly playable, until you get to the Space Age, wherein it starts giving you quests, dialogue prompts, and icons that aren't quite intuitive enough for use.
But yeah.
Pale blue light seeps through my window,
it catches at my eyes, and haunts them when they're closed.
The Time Travellers Wife is compelling to read, but not always pleasant. I just chain read about 200 pages, afterwards feeling too hollow to keep reading, but also too hollow to sleep.
Still unemployed, not sure how to solve this, not sure if CAN solve this. Don't like thinking so far ahead as to encounter the grim reality of this.
Ate at a nearby restaurant tonight, because the pizza place I wanted to go to was closed. Their menu isn't in English, one of their chef's knew "Beef" and "Chicken" as English words, and shouted these at me while pointing at pictures in the menu. I got too little food, forgot my phrasebook so couldn't even puzzle through like I normally would.
My birthday is on Friday, that's 3 days away (well, 2 now). I turn 24. I'm finding it hard to think of much that I've amounted to in life so far.
Which is to say, it's a birthday, I'm having birthday angst. Y'know?
Tomorrow I am going to have Burrito for dinner, I think. And knock back a tequila or two. Drinking is big and clever, and y'know, I just ugh.
Current Mood:  discontent
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11:26 pm
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Sleep pattern disintegration
So I just woke up, at 11PM. I was really tired about 3 hours ago, and now, well, I'm not feeling like I could sleep again in a hurry.
Though I did have the most pornographic dream about taking a leak ever, int he dream it went on for like, half an hour, the entire time with that sensation from the first moment after you stop holding it in.
Yeah, that was a weird dream.
Bought a copy of Spore for 10 kuai today, sadly the graphics package it comes with doesn't like this computer, and I don't think it's going to be as easy to fix this problem as it ought to be, given the clearly dodge nature of the game. So it's sloooooooow progress. The game keeps seizing entirely if I try to wander around on the island. Which is, y'know, not very useful.
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01:16 am
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And I'd had such a good day
I just threw up, for the 2nd time in what, 5 days? This si ridiculous, current hypothesises:
I'm sick.
Stress.
Not enough Sleep
Dehydration.
Pollution.
I have no idea what, but erk. Time to go buy paper towels, and plastic bags, and a big ol bottle of water.
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11:14 am
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Last nights dinner
Plus this mornings breakfast http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/20091107
Duck tongue was a mistake, but not so major a one that I regret making it.
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05:29 pm
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China is,
I've come to realise that I'm almost certainly suffering through the opening stages of culture shock. It must be the opening stages, and I think I'm holding together fairly well.
Though I realised after the girl in the dairy served me that maybe I should've corrected her use of good morning, since it was at least 3 in the afternoon when I went by, but anyway.
The people in this apartment building seem friendly, but I'm up against a wall of my own comprehension as far as saying anything to them is concerned. I say "Ni Hao Ma" in greeting, nod, wave. But occasionally they make forays to open conversation proper with me, to which I have to smile sheepishly and shrug my shoulders, hands raised to the heavens. They understand, they laugh in the way of the chinese, not taking offense, or making fun, but simply lubricating what would be in western conversations an awkward silence, or an "oh".
But yeah, culture shock. I have this, I don't know, it feels like a compulsion maybe an addiction? to wandering about. China is awesome, people smile, wave, so much is happening. There's a stretch of Yanan Lu that goes for kilometres where there's not a single bit of pavement that hasn't been ripped up with workmen crawling along it, installing things, resealing, having cigarettes.
People sleep where they are here, if they're waiting between jobs. People in little hand-pulled carts for the carting of various and sundry goods catch a nap between jobs on the side of the street, while not 10 metres from them a digger with a jack-hammer attachment drills into the sidewalk, hunting whatever treasure it is they hunt with those things.
I don't feel like I have time to stop, and write about this. Because the act of writing, while cathartic, isn't rejuvenating to my supply of culture. Or maybe that's the wrong terms. But in some way, soaking in the broth of chained seasons of "How I Met Your Mother" helps reaffirm my self, keep the world from crashing in too hard, too fast, on my suidgy brain meats. And so I watch TV, read books, catch the latest pirated movies from the west. (Up is brilliant by the way, though the Chinese version has the French visuals, with the English voiceover.) And watching these things, immersing myself in western music, drinking a couple of beers. They resotre the stability.
Heck, yesterday I felt physically fine enough to go out exploring again, I just hid because I was too disturbed by the world, I wanted my mental health day, and god I'm glad I got it.
But I don't feel BAD, this isn't the mental health days of home. It's just the protective self nurturing knowledge thatif I don't take the occasional day of rest, of shelter, it might crash in on me too hard.
I'm informed by various and sundry people who know these kinds of thing that I probably am just hitting that point. I've been here what, 6, 7 weeks? (I lose track), my birthday is next week, and it'll be my first birthday ever in a strange city (The Gold Coast, while not home, wasn't strange. Just kind of viciously lonely except when it was punctuated by the fumbling family interactions that dealing with my mothers side of my family has pretty much always been for me.), presumably my cousin will take me out somewhere to celebrate it, probably Cantina, since I've made my love of there well known.
This is all for now. This post should be considered V1.0, I may well come back and reedit it in many ways many times. Also, unfortunate people of my google wave contact list can mess about, insert their questions straight into it, anything they can think to do with the form, sicne y'know, I'm trying to figure out some use for my membership there.
Edit:
PS: Today's weird photos here http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/20091106
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08:36 pm
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Today in Will land.
I did nothing! (Yesterday I got sick, I think it was some pork buns I ate, they didn't taste that good.)
Well, I played the demo of Torchlight, I've decided I LUST for this game, but I so do not have the cash for it, so that's that. I hold out some form of hope that someone will get me it as a gift since my birthday is coming up, and my steam account is Confusionest. But that's silly.
Also, selfish, because my family has done enough for me already this year, and I rarely get decent gifts for my friends, so I don't deserve games via the Internet.
ANYWAY, the shameless begging out of the way, I have updates:
Firstly: http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/20091105
Photos from the last couple of days. Nothing too exciting, I found a guy selling bootleg books, and bought The Time Travellers Wife for 20quai. (I overpaid, but the language barrier was getting in the way of haggling.)
And I drew some things in my diary over the last few weeks,so I took photos of them. Please ignore the address that's in there, unless you want to send the nice girl it belongs to Candy. (I feel safe saying this, because she doesn't usually read my blog posts as far as I can tell)
http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/ChinaDrawings
Current Mood:  devious
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07:05 pm
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Slowly acclimatizing
I'm beginning to learn my way around Jing An Su. This is advantageous, since it gives me hope of managing to navigate through it while drunk in future. And THAT would allow me to not spend too much on taxi's.
Also it means I feel more comfortable out and about, y'know?
My spending is stillout of step with my income projections, I'll need to fix that eventually. For now the excuse is that I've been getting things I need for the apartment, which is for the most part true. Some small amount of emergency snack food, a pair of speakers for use with the computer I'm using, a couple of movies, socks. These are the mundanities of existence.
I should get out of the house tomorrow and try to interview for a job.
I've rediscovered my love of reading since I got to Shanghai, which is a problem, because if I'm reading, I'm not absorbing the world around me the way I really OUGHT to.
Also, if I didn't leave my headphones at Nuzi when I stopped by to grab my passport, then I've lost them in the city. Either way, no iPod for me in the nearterm.
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11:33 am
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Living on air.
There is, I admit, a small ammount of vertigo involved with the realization that I am now living 10 storeys up. It's more a thing that strikes me occasionally, rather than a constant feeling though.
I'm torn between a want to write a memoir of my travels so far, pass off my non-fiction as a Nano contribution (I don't really care if it's supposed to be fiction, right?) a want to pursue my last idea for fiction for Nano (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) qarl mentioned wiki-centric societies, the ideas keep bouncing in my head) and a visceral need to be out of the house doing things.
I think the visceral need will win, at least for the next few days, until I manage to map out some of Jing-an with my feet.
Anyway, here are some photos from the window in the corridor outside my apartment, and then from the streets of Jing-An.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/20091104
There's an awesome feeling of accomplishment from tackling the paving as I am, y'know? Like I'm not making the streets my own, you can't use a crass term like ownership in regards to Chinese streets, but I can make them familiar. Integrate myself into them, or them into me more accurately. I'm sure I'm not having much of an impact on them, but they're having an impact on me.
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12:37 pm
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Last night I slept curled up in the corridor of my apartment building.
But I'm in the apartment now, and I got a good 6 hours or so of sleep in a BED and the dreams were awesome weird kind of disturbing but nice.
Yeah, that's all for now. Pics of apartment will come later. Have discovered several things I need, so I guess I'll go out and find a supermarket to buy them at. I am so completely lost in this area.
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11:55 am
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I meet famous people
I was a bartender yesterday, then I went drinking with some of the punters when they went out, because they insisted I should come out, and they were buying the beer.
I spent my wages taxiing home after I lost everyone I was drinking with.
Seemed like a pretty happening club, and then I shared a taxi with someone who turned out to be a relatively important game devleoper, how cool is that?
Picture is proof. I have no idea what her name was, she introduced herself to me as Alice, but that might've been a joke.
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03:00 am
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Holy Shit.
I just shared a Cab with American McGee.
I didn't really believe him, until I looked at his wiki page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_McGee
Now to figure out some way to contact him and say thanks for the extra cab money, and maybe invite him out for a drink sometime.
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10:32 am
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Beautiful Japanese Foood.
Last night I had it. Lets see, I'll upload pictures
First there are pictures of a Church I saw when I went for my job interview the other day. Then there's a couple from Cantina the night after that, and then there's a whole bunch of the awesome Japanese food we had last night. Which was the first time since I got to China that I've felt compelled to eat so much I felt sick.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/20091031
Chicken Stomach was ok, not the most awesome thing ever, but not bad. Bit chewy for my taste.
Chicken heart was BEAUTIFUL.
The Scallops were amazing.
Chicken Gristle wasn't my thing at all.
Pork wrapped in an extremely thin layer of mushroom was beautiful, moist, a little salty. I fully recommend.
Chicken Skin wasn't quite my thing the way it was prepared, it tasted good, but then it was chewy once the taste was gone.
The Dumplings weren't my favourite, but were ok.
Squid was quite nice. I totally didn't recognise it as such though.
Bacon wrapped tomato is the best thing ever. The bacon was grilled so it was soft but lovely, and thejuicy tomato in the centre. Oh, it was perfect.
The sausage was tasty, quite flavoursome. The egg roll was good, though not exceptionally noteworthy.
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12:14 am
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I'm a touched boozed right now.
Beer + Mojito + 2 Margaretta's = Happpy Will.
I love you aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalll SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much.
That is all, really. You're great. The waitress was hot, the guy whose hair I got a photo of was called Malcolm, and he had the -coolest- look I think I've ever seen in person.
Oh, and I ate street food, i still like the taste of dodgy Chinese sausages, this is bound to end badly...
I think that's all for now, I should head ot bed before I faceplant into the keyboard, I'd never hear the end of that.
Need to send out more HIRE ME emails in the morning.
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08:44 am
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First Job interview in quite awhile.
Thanks to Spike for teaching eme how to iron a shirt, I am not going as a rumpled mess, or at least, not nearly as bad as I would be otherwise.
God I hate long-sleeved shirts.
I am currently looking approximately like this: http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/Me02#5397445367012457874
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09:04 pm
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Interviews..
Tomorrow I have a job interview, they called me back about an hour after I sent my CV in via email. I think the outfit might be slightly dodge, they have a hotmail address, and talk about the flexibility of work location and time, but its something, yeah? And if I get the job its still work experience either way.
Not been up to a lot otherwise. Watching movies, reading. Hiding at home because I'm allowed to take the occasional day off from the city, right?
I do have to recommend "FAQ About Time Travel" to all and sundry geeks. It's convoluted, self conscious, but funny. I liked it. British Sci-fi, not made with a huge budget, y'know the deal.
Anyway, that's all for now. In the weekend I won at 500, much to other peoples consternation. It's nice to know I gained -something- from all those hours. Also suspect that any skill I have at reading people at Poker is just transfer from 500.
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05:29 pm
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Day uh, 34?
I'm still here. Still breathing. Spent the last couple of days resting quite a lot, getting rid of of my sleep debt from the trip to Beijing.
Anyway, here are the photos from yesterday, they're almost all just of the streets.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/2009102302
Today I'm struck by not knowing what the hell I'm doing. I need to send out CVs before Monday, applying for a job for the next month and a bit. I also need to find a job that wants to bring me over here and employ me.
I think I want to come back, ask me yesterday and I would've been sure of it, not at all doubting.
Gah.
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05:23 pm
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Photos from Beijing
http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/01ImperialAcademyConfuscianTemple
http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/02AlleywaysLamaTemple
http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/03OutOnTown
http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/04RoundTown
http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/05TiannamienAndFurther
http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/06AfterTimesSquare
http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/07JingShanParkAfterDarkMongolFood
http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/08TheHostel
http://picasaweb.google.com/Confusion.Tempest/09BackToShanghai
Ask me questions, I'll probably not tell you lies.
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09:16 am
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Back in Shanghai
You cna probably expect a photo dump at some point -after- I have a nice long shower.
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09:56 am
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Hi folks
As I've told some of you I was wrong about my train ticket being for last night.
Anyway I'm still in Beijing. Last night I got drunk with my fellow hostel people. Was good. I don't quite know what to do next.
Current Mood:  amused
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04:16 pm
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Cold and tired.
Like the topic says. I want to curl up and hide. Guess I will have to go hunt food at some point. Even that feels like it'd be overstretching my resources.
Did I mention the lethargy?
I would post More but that would require too much effort given this is via itouch.
Current Mood:  lethargic
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