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another. very. long. day. what day is it? how come i can't remember? if i can survive until thursday i'll be fine. after a double day work shift (15 hours) i still wasn't able to finish, got about halfway done. i didn't feel particularly guilty about it though; realistically, there's probably another month worth of work to do to get this one interactive to a solid state - this interactive that should've been done at the end of august. i'll need to talk with the client to see if i can transition off of this project, it's way past it's expiration date. if they want to withhold full payment i won't argue (although i haven't received any money from them yet), they're already low-balling me on the price as it is. at this point i'd actually pay money to be done with this one project. i'm pretty much working for free at this point, and maybe they realize this, that's why they haven't really been complaining very much.

it didn't take long before i started getting annoyed with my roommate. i noticed he went to work rather late this morning, 10am, about the same time i get out of bed. i went to the kitchen and noticed some of my food was gone. granted, i told him last night he could have some, but i didn't think he'd just take the whole mooncake my parents game me (packaged neatly in its own fancy box), figured he'd just split it in half. not too big a deal, i'm not too hung up about foodshare issues.

however, what does bother me to no end is the bathroom situation. the fact that every single one of my china roommates has been unable to piss correctly into the toilet. is it cultural? or is my toilet just designed in such a way that it makes them miss every single time? i can understand a few drops, because sometimes in the morning when i'm groggy my accuracy is off too. but come on! these guys are pissing like they're not even trying to get it inside the bowl. you think being a. researchers, something like this would be very easy for them. every single time my roommate uses the bathroom, i'm secretly right behind him wiping the piss off the floor. tonight, it looked like he was just pissing outside. i was pretending it was only water just to get through the clean-up without gagging. the worst thing isn't the fact that he's pissing on the floor; no, the worst thing is having to confront him, because it's totally awkward. do you know how embarrassing it is to tell a grown man he doesn't know how to piss? but i've had enough, i'm going to give him "the talk" tomorrow.

so apart from eating some of my food and pissing all over my bathroom floor, i don't have many other complaints about my roommate. he came back from new york last night, told me of his outer borough adventures, hanging out at little odessa, drinking vodka with friends and feasting on authentic x. lamb barbecue. i said i fixed the internet in his room and he managed to skype his sister back in china. he came back home this afternoon, made some lunch, and then took a nap, before returning to the office. he didn't come back until well after 11pm. he told me back in china, he's used to taking afternoon naps. he goes to work at 10am, and then comes home late. i then remembered something: china has just one time zone, set to the capital of beijing. when it's 9am in beijing, it's also 9am in urumqi, 1500 miles away, despite the fact that it should really be 6am. so people start their days much later there, and likewise finish later as well. anyway, he came home this afternoon with some groceries. he bought this really expensive organic milk for his tea. i'll have to teach him the secrets of american food shopping. he also bought a lamp chop, which got us talking about meat. "do people eat dog here?" he asked. i couldn't even begin to explain to him how taboo a subject that is here in the US. "do they eat dog in xinjiang?" i asked him. "no, they don't. we eat mutton, beef, and horse." i didn't even blink, because i've had horse myself. i told him i couldn't really tell the difference between horse meat and cow meat; he said beef is cold, while horse is hot (some chinese medicine talk). he said poultry is very cheap but he stays away from it because they're fed on chemicals. likewise with fish. i noticed he didn't wear any glasses, a rarity for someone in his bookish field. he said k. <1--kazakhs--> on the average have better eyesight than their han brethren; nobody in his immediate family nor any of his siblings wear glasses.

bumped into bruce today. just by chance i looked out the window and saw him walking around the street like he was lost. i opened the door and said hello. he said he rang my doorbell (i didn't hear it), that he was in town for the weekend (actually, down at provincetown), but just now accidently locked himself out of the house and needed to borrow my phone to call the landlord to get a spare key. he ended up getting back inside his house, we didn't have to break a window (although secretly i was hoping that might happen).